900 Days of School: Special Images for the 2019-2020 School Year (Part Two)

“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Saturday I posted the beginning of the story of creating a special image for each of my students this school year.  If you missed the beginning of this story, you can view it here.

One thing I learned as a child is

the importance of keeping promises made to children.  Therefore, I was determined to fulfill my promise to create a special picture for each of my students.

Since March 13 was the last day I was physically with my students, I had to change my approach to creating these pictures.  Luckily, I had taken portraits of the students earlier in the school year.  Using these portraits, pictures I took in my neighborhood during the stay at home period of time, and images in my catalog, I created a special picture for each child.

I absolutely love the work of  Marcel Van Luit, an artist in the Netherlands.  My love for feathers, flowers, and composite photography led me to try to create an image using his style.

Once I created this portrait, I knew I could create a special picture for each of my students even if I no longer had access to them physically.

When we left school in March, we were reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I told one of my students I was planning to make him Willy Wonka in his picture.

Since there were many flowers and other signs of spring in my neighborhood, I incorporated these into many of the portraits.

For some of the portraits, I used images from my personal catalog of images taken in the past.

Working on these images not only allowed me to keep an important promise I made to my children, but it also allowed me time to “spend” with each of these very special people who I love in a time when I could not spend time with them in person.

My personal photography project, 900 Days of School, has taken me in so many different directions in the past three years.  It has also brought me a great deal of joy as I have shared my passion for photography with my students.  I look forward to seeing where next year leads in the project.