Poignant beauty

Thoughts of compassion.

I was scheduled to do some portfolio work for a young model from Bozeman. She was going to arrive at my studio at about 10 am and we had several shots mapped out. I was getting the lights set up, cameras checked and loaded, having my morning coffee when an office mate from down the hall entered my studio, white as a ghost and visibly shaken. He asked if I had seen or heard what was going on in NYC. The date was September 11th. In a moment I was on the internet looking at the most horrific images of buildings collapsing, papers, concrete, steel and human bodies falling from the sky. A quick call to my sister in law relieved my fear that my nephew might have been in harms way... but the news was good. My nephew Theo had called briefly to say he and his wife were safe, but it was obvious that life, as we know it was about to change.

In walked Jill Jin, a young woman with a disheveled aura and eyes that were speaking of the pain in her heart, but not given to tears. She was wearing a garment of shock and apprehension. Conversation was difficult under the circumstances. We sat calmly and discussed the options of rescheduling the shoot. She was about to walk out, when I had the thought that these photos might be about something much more meaningful than images for a model portfolio. It was a time much un-like what I had expected, but I decided to capture the moment that was given to me... regardless. I uttered the idea as best I could and Jill agreed.

Jill recently emailed me and asked for these images. Thanks to Jill, I relived those moments and rediscovered these images today. It caused me to dig down into my old files, like the memories of the painful realizations in life that we tend to forget. For some reason it was today of all days, just after a highly disturbed student walks onto a campus in Virginia and takes over 30 innocent lives. My heart goes out to all those that lost loved ones on that day in New York several years ago, and today in Virginia.

So, in my late night thoughts, I don't know exactly how to bring this full circle, except to encourage all of us to embrace love and not hate, to practice compassion for each other, and most of all to find forgiveness in our hearts.

The following images, although painful have a very unique and poignant beauty. I could try to describe the moment in words, but I think the images speak for themselves.


Images Copyright 2007 Larry Stanley


Perhaps these images are misplaced on my Montana Weddings Blog but life contains joy and dispare, happiness and sadness, and we all share in the sadness of this human tradgedy.