Perhaps it is the time of the year. The grey skies, the rainy days, the leaves blowing across the landscape... Autumn always puts me into a reflective, introspective mood. October 31 is also the birthday of my son, who died eight years ago, and so inevitably this time of year, my thoughts turn a little more somber.

Last week I began creating a new series entitled, "When Angels Fall." I wanted to convey some emotions I have relating to life and death, change and rebirth, grief. There are, as always in my more intimate photos, bits of vulnerability and love thrown into the mix as well. There are things we hold onto, things we cling to desperately when change is forced upon us. We resist what is happening, for it is simply too much to bear. This resistance is natural for a time, and is what grief is really all about. In the process of grieving, we move through this resistance, and finally we come to acceptance. These photos provide tiny glimpses of that process.

Eight years later, many losses and changes later, I am still making sense of it all. I have come to accept what has happened and learned to live with them, incorporating them into my being, but I notice that the way I relate to these losses now is very different than it was in the beginning. We grieve at so many levels, and our relationship to grief over time. The things that were prominent or very important at the beginning become diminished later on, and new things come to the fore.

Fortunately I have photography to help me continue to make sense of my experiences.

Sam Beam, songwriter and frontman for the band Iron and Wine is someone whose writing I find to be gripping, compelling, profoundly moving. in his song "Over the Mountain." He writes, "Mother, remember when I breathed through your body..." Yes, I do remember.

As the series develops further, I will be sharing more of the photos here.

Until next time...

Anne