Living History

I do volunteer photojournalism for an online magazine based out of Davis, CA. I must admit, my assignment this month turned out to be a wonderful encounter with some very sharp senior citizens. I was to shoot a class of scholarly seniors whom were attending a memoir writing course through the UC Davis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute extension. I walked in expecting to find them discussing proper use of English and various ways to jog their memories in order to crank out an essay. What I found was a warm, intelligent and surprisingly hip group of storytellers. I walked around the room taking my shots, and found myself getting lost in their words as they sat in round table form reading their memoirs. I laughed with them, snickered when they snickered and wanted to just pull up a chair and join in the discussion after each presentation.


Maybe it was because I just recently lost my grandfather and carried a small sense of not fully knowing about his life, but I was completely at ease and enthralled in listening. I had to keep reminding myself of why I was there and force my finger to click the shutter. Their stories were marvelous mixes of humor and anguish from various points in their lives and I am very grateful that I was able to be amongst them and hear their journeys.

This shoot was truly a surprise and a pleasure. I strongly suggest visiting an elder in your family, sitting down and finding out what they have to say about days gone by. Please enjoy these shots from my few hours with some wonderful vessels of living history.