These items are what remains of my Grandmother's life. Or at least what I still have left of her. She passed away on Thanksgiving Day six years ago, just one week shy of her 90th birthday. I was very close to her and she was a very influential person in my life. My second child's middle name is named after her (Elizabeth) and we still mention her and our happy memories of her all the time. I always feel very sentimental for her at this time of year as she passed away on Thanksgiving, the last time we spoke was on my birthday (a few days before Thanksgiving) and her birthday was just after Thanksgiving.

My mom gave me the set of silver my grandmother had given her years before. As we were cleaning out my grandmothers house I also asked to take the small Beefeater frame that has random gold watch pieces in the design. It always hung on her wall and I remember thinking it was so odd when I was little. I also asked to take the replica of the Liberty Bell because it sat on a table in her living room and I always played with it when we were at her house, so much that she had to tape the part that makes the "dinging" sound to the side to muffle the sound. The pearls and gold bangles were also passed on to me and the napkin was from her favorite holiday, Christmas. The merry-go-round was a gift she gave me on my 1st birthday, 41 years ago. It still play music when you twist it but some of the pieces are cracked and broken. The Hendricks Gin always reminds me of her and her favorite Gin and Tonics. Whenever I have one or hear someone ordering one I think of her. And lastly, we have a lot of birds in our backyard but there is one in particular who seems to make it's presence known. It taps on our window and will sit on the chairs outside. It often is playing with another red cardinal and I like to think the main cardinal is my grandmother and the other is her sister (my great aunt) who I was also close with and passed away two months after my grandmother. It's comforting to think they are out there, hanging around and having fun.

As for the image, I made sure to keep the ISO to 100 and again, could not have done this without a tripod. The reflective nature of the silverware was a challenge, especially because it was a very cloudy weekend here and there was not much natural light. I experimented with a variety of filtered light and it always seemed like one of the knives was reflecting too much or showing a reflection. I also experimented with white and black backgrounds and while I thought I would prefer the black, the larger black paper wasn't a true black and looked a little washed out (it was from the dollar store) especially when shown with the darker items and wood tones.

Overall this image looks like a mix of things young and old to me, which is true to the way my grandmother lived her life. She was always older when I knew her but she had a child like quality that was easy to relate to. When I look at this image, or if anyone else in my family saw this image, they'd be reminded of her.