Photography books are something I hold close to my heart. Growing up I always had dozens of books around me at all times. My family has had several writers in it since before I was born. So when it came to be my turn to create a book of my own I was more than ready to work incredibly hard. By the way this is Amanda Hevener speaking to you. At the time I was more than ready to throw myself into my work and express my distress over my home life.
You see my Pop Pop had been told he pretty much had no hope of beating cancer. If there is one thing I do well it’s put my feelings in my work. This book I made is about more than my Pop Pop or myself. It is about my entire family. About love and loss and the emotion of realizing that when you feel things are well more than likely its about to change and hurt you. It’s about raw pain and black, white, and grey emotion. It’s about clinging to those you love in loss and in “normalcy”.
This is the link to my book “Wednesday” if you’re interested in previewing it online: http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/2756179
However, I highly suggest you visit the library and flip through its pages. And bring tissues. You might cry. It seems to be a common reaction. I hope you enjoy the book. I hope you can understand how I felt, how I saw things, how my family felt. I hope that this book can make you cry; maybe laugh, and maybe you’ll just look at the photos. Either way I hope you find it worth your time. I did. After all time is precious.
This is something I explored more with my second book “Echos of Wednesday”. Sadly, the second book is not in the library but you can see part of it here. This book is still about my Pop Pop but in what he left behind. It is about how it feels to cope. I could go on and on about coping and how I experienced it but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective as if I just showed you part of my statement.
“This book is dearly personal to me but I hope that for those of you who have lost someone it resonates. Your loved one may not have lighthouses or bears. They may not have believed in any higher power. You may not have necklaces with their thumbprint and words you loved. But I hope that you can look past details and see them and recognize your own loss. I hope you can see their photographs or your tears. I hope that when looking at blurred images of my darkest nights while I cried you can remember your own and connect. After all human connection is what we desire most, without it this book wouldn’t exist.
Coping is a thing of organic chaos. It does what it wants, when it wants and it lets you stew in it. People will tell you its all going to be fine but coping convinces you otherwise. It tells you that you don’t even recognize yourself without that person. It forces you to relive the pain and memories over and over and over. Coping is cruel. Coping is the truth.”
So these are my books, my life. I hold them so dear to my heart and I hope you might be touched too.
