photojournalism taught me about death, grief, and loss
I’ve been thinking a lot about how my previous work as a photographer prepared me for my work as a medium and spirit portrait artist.
It’s really sort of weird, ya know — bearing witness to people’s pain, often at the worst point in their life, and then going so far as to document it with a camera.
I don’t know why I did this sort of work, but I do know that when I was about 21-years-old, I was called to do it. And I completely reconfigured my studies and academic pursuits accordingly. And then the Universe conspired and got me an old-school newspaper job from 2014 to 2016.
I’m sharing this photo work today because 1.) it’s what’s alive in me, and 2.) even though I came to resent photography, it’s a large part of my story as a medium and spiritual person.
Sunlight Oracle is, at its core, about self-acceptance. So I accept this part of my story and I acknowledge how it’s played a cumulative role in my life and business now.
5 times photography taught me about death, loss, and grief
1, The fatal car accident that killed 17-year-old cheerleader Emily Fleming and 64-year-old Andy Conderman.
This was not the first time I documented the death. In fact, the first week on the job, I got called in to document a quadruple homicide that involved the death of two children under the age of 5. But this is the first time that I documented a car accident that killed two people — a high school cheerleader and a senior citizen — whilst two other people involved in the crash survived. I remember feeling really uncomfortable taking this photo. And I’m even uncomfortable sharing it now.
2. The funeral of Jazznique Fort was my first of many funerals related to gun violence in Rockford — and that is why I remember her most clearly.
Jazzy Fort, who was shot in the head, was only 15 years old at the time of her death. Her killer has still not been identified nor arrested to this day. Which is why I’m also including the photo of her mother below. The case has gone cold.
3. Jesse Marshall lost his eyesight at the age of 15 after his father had been moving a shotgun — a family heirloom passed down for more than three generations — from a closet when it discharged,
Shotgun pellets passed through two walls and a computer chair before entering Jesse's eyes and permanently blinding his left one.
I spent a few weeks with Jesse and his mom, documenting his life as an ROTC student and a kid just trying to make it through high school, which I remember as being difficult even without the traumatic incident and vision impairment. I think of him often.
4. The EF-4 tornado that destroyed the rural towns of Rochelle and Fairdale, Illinois. The tornado killed two people and injured 22 others.
This was awful, and everyone I met was rightfully dazed out of their minds. I don’t remember anything about this day other than taking this photo and being grateful that I was able to talk to some folks (if you don’t get people’s names in photojournalism, then you really should not run the photo. That’s the rule). I slept a lot after this.
5. The man who built two meditation labyrinths and invited strangers to join him in walking them.
I’m including this spirituality piece because my exposure to grief, death, and loss, was not always doom and gloom. This story was a quick write-up for the FAITH section the newspaper was running at the time.
I was neither religious (still am not religious) nor spiritual (I am remarkably spiritual) at the time, but this guy and the “trance like state” he talked about really stuck with me. I’m happy to have stumbled across this image today and realize that I now practice meditation on a daily basis.
Bonus: Obviously I had a lot of first-hand and intimate exposure to death with my friend Charlotte, whom I penned a special blog for a couple weeks ago.
Alright, this is a super small sampling of some of the stuff I used to run around photographing and then compartamentalizng for years thereafter. Lol. But recently it’s bubbling up again and I wanted to share here with you <3.
