A True Song

 

Mæg ic be me sylfum soðgied wrecan

(I can about myself recite a true song)

 

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“I can recite a true song about myself.” This line opens my favorite Anglo Saxon elegy, The Seafarer.  An elegy is a solemn poem that mourns the loss of someone or something, focusing on the transience of life. Using myself as subject, I am making a series of elegies. Through visual imagery I explore what it means to be human. Like the poem, these lyrical photographs express lament, loss and consolation. For the settings of the images, I seek out ruined places, once possessing life and sometimes grandeur but now abandoned and silent. These forsaken landscapes, mansions and chapels signify the transience of human treasures. I use long exposures to make my figure shadowy and translucent, emphasizing the fleeting nature of life.  The absence of color further contributes to the melancholy tone and sense of sorrow for what has passed. But the images also console with light and beauty. These are stories of mystery and loss, remembrance and inheritance. They ask the viewer to consider two ancient essential questions: What endures? Where are those who were before us?

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Pigment prints on Hahnemühle photo rag baryta (315 gsm, 100% cotton).  For edition number and to purchase, email anne.ellis.berry@gmail.com.