The Birthday Project - Final

For those of you have followed my photography since 2003, when I first created a website, you may remember a particular section I would add to once a year called "The Birthday Project".

Every year around this time, I would make a portrait or even just a snapshot of Mirinda. It's been six years since I last made any of photograph of her, which you can see in the aptly named label.

Some life changing events have happened since the last time I posted a picture of her, we became foster parents, adopted, divorced and she was diagnosed with cancer  a little more than a year ago; the biggest change was her untimely death earlier this year as a result of her cancer.

We didn't talk a lot  about the what ifs and what not, but on one such occasion we both thought about me taking a portrait of her post chemo, when she was at her most hairless state. So one day last August, just after her doctors had declared her cancer in remission, I got the opportunity to sit with her to make that portrait of her.  I won't go into the particulars of what happened in the months after I made this portrait, but needless to say, the cancer came back.

 

I have made a lot of portraits in my time, but none have ever been so raw or so intimate.   Looking back on the time since I made this portrait of her and what I have learned since,  I think that in this moment,  she may have been looking forward with hope, but deep down I think she knew what was forthcoming.  

Since her death, I was contacted by a woman who has survived breast cancer and is doing a documentary about breast cancer about  having this portrait be a part of the film.  Mirinda didn't have breast cancer, but the portrait will be part of a section of the film about hair loss.  

I don't know much more about the film, but it is called Life Interrupted: Telling Breast Cancer Stories.  

I am very honored to have this portrait be a part of this film, because it is a way for Mirinda to live on.  

Happy birthday Mirinda, I and the rest of the village,  that we jointly and individually have put together, got this and we will make sure that our daughter grows up knowing you and will grow up to be the best woman she can be.

Brian

The Birthday Project Continues...

I know I haven't posted a new photograph from this project in more than two years, but it doesn't mean that I haven't stopped doing it.
This year marks a special edition of the "Birthday Project", in that this year Mirinda turns 40, so in an addition to the annual photograph I am going to post several of the photographs from previous years.

For her birthday this year, we wanted to have a big party, with cake, drinks, good food, and as many of the wonderful people who have touched our lives and hers. We wanted to have a pirate theme and we also rented a bounce house.
The photograph was taken just after we bounced for the first time that day..


























The 39th edition of the project was taken slightly after her actual birthday, a lot closer to mine actually, but here it is...



















Over the years I have used many different cameras for this project, from an SLR, to a Holga, to a point and shoot, which has been the main camera I have used for this project, but with this photograph I used the camera on my cell phone. I really like this one, because it was pretty spontaneous, we were waiting for our order to come, and I remember thinking how good the light was there and had to have to make a photograph of her.

If you have been following the "Birthday Project" since its inception, you have seen the following photographs:
























@ 38
For my 37th birthday Mirinda wanted to do something special for me, so she colored her hair my favorite color, red.... Thanks SEXY!!

The photograph I did of Mirinda for her 37th birthday is another favorite of mine, largely because where I made it at. Can you guess where we were on her 37th birthday?
It was our first time there, and the first time either one of us had been there in 20 years or so...

























@37


I usually make the photograph on or very close to her birthday, either at our home before we go out to dinner or before the party we are having for her that day, which is the case for numbers 36 and 35.

























@36

























@35

Prior to the 35th edition of the project, I was still experimenting with how to shoot the photographs for the project and what not, so they are all a little different...
























@34


















@33

You'd think that being a "Holga Master", I'd have more with the Holga, but as it is I just have the one. I remember this one pretty well, it was a Saturday, and we had quite the birthday date. We got all dressed up, Mirinida in the gown she's wearing and me in my "class A" uniform to attend the ballet, her favorite, "Swan Lake", then off to a wonderful dinner, then we finished the day at the military ball, which, I had told her, that it was held on her birthday just for her.
























@32

The first installment of this project began with her 31st birthday, but I am unable to find that picture, but I still remember what she looked like then...

Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane, and thank you Mirinda for being my wife, my muse, and for letting me photograph you.

You I love...