the ones we love

I absolutely adore collections of photographs. Collections with meaning. Or collections of photographs with no meaning at all. Collections of blue images, images of birds, images of babies or images of buildings. It doesn't really matter - I love looking at things in groups. Maybe it has something to do with the old notion, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." I think it was Aristotle who said it and I'm not entirely sure it's applicable to groups of pictures but for today, I think it was and it does.

So I pretty much lose my mind when people come up with a collection of photographs that has profound meaning... a sentiment linked to a group of pictures that makes me go, "dammit! why didn't I think of that?!" because it's such a great idea. Which is exactly how I felt when I stumbled upon the project The Ones We Love.

I think photography is especially suited to a sentimental personality. Most photographer's I know have a romantic streak that runs very deep. So it's no surprise to me that a photo project resulted with this as it's goal:

The Ones We Love is a project highlighting young and talented photographers from around the world. Each artist contributed six photographs of the person(s) who is most important to them, taken outdoors in a natural setting. The goal of the website is to portray the people who are loved, cherished, and inspirational to these artists, and also showcase the differences and similarities in the photographs each of them took within the same guidelines.

*Swoon* What an amazing idea. And some of the photos are even more amazing! I think it's so interesting how you can put a bunch of photographers in a situation and they all come out with very distinct representations of what happened. So give photographers the world over an idea, imagine all the different approaches! I love it.

One thing I especially like about this website is the hand written introduction about the loved one by each artist... Some serious, some whimsical, some almost too messy to read. I've always felt that I am especially good at taking pictures of the people I love simply because I love them so much. And I think that's exactly what makes these images so profound. You read the intro, you see the pictures, you feel the love.

Here's a sample of what I'm talking about from artist Ian Aleksander Adams from Savannah, Georgia. (click it to make it bigger).



You should probably just go check it out for yourself! Happy viewing!