FFP 2020 – August – Far Away
August is here and the theme is something that gave me the opportunity to think what would be better suited. Since I use a 50mm lens I can’t say that I will capture some details of a subject that is far away, so the only option for me would be to shoot something that has a meaning related to the theme. Easy said than done!…that is what I found out after the first half of the month. So I started to think on this from another perspective, that of a more metaphoric meaning. And that is how I got this month’s theme in a frame. If I would have ended it there nobody would understand what I wanted to capture in the frame, so let me put it into context. Spoiler alert! This is a sad story.
During one of the visits to my grandparent’s house, some 100km away from Bucharest, I always go by a house that is deserted for some time now. The house itself is 50 meters away from my grandparent’s home but we just walk by it. As if this is just another house on the street, but it’s not. I remember it so well since I spent my childhood at my grandparents each summer. The people who lived there were kind, loving and very social with everybody. My grandparents would go each evening and gather in front of their front bench, with other neighbors, and just chilled, talked and got up to date on the recent events that had happened in the village or some other village near. When you are a kid you just take stuff and people for granted, and think that this is how it’s going to be forever, but it’s not. About 24 years ago the husband died of heart disease and his wife tried to get along with life as best as she could. But sometimes you just can’t and it doesn’t have to be a disease that ends it, just the loneliness and sadness. The place that once was full of life and joy, now is filled with the opposite.
It is said that you make the house a home, but once you are gone, what remains of that place? For 4 years my grandparents continued to visit the neighbors wife, to make life for her a bit more enjoyable. But after 4 years she passed away as well. We don’t know if it was some disease that she had and neglected or just the loneliness. My grandparents said that her husband called her to the skies because he saw the loneliness in her heart and could not stand it.
It is a bit over 20 years since she died and the house is still there, but their children never came to live there or restore the house. Instead they left it just like it was when their parents lived there. Now you can see the house and how it looks like. Nature reclaimed it and it has been deserted for over 20 years. When I go by it I remember the people that lived there and how it was when they were alive. I think this is the best way you can remember someone. Each time I see the house, it is so close to ours but the people that used to live there are far away now.
Frugal Film Project – The Zine!
The Frugal Film Project: one camera, one film, one year. Follow 13 photographers around the globe who complete this project…
Frugal Film Project is a collective of photographers around the world who use cameras that cost less than $50
The Frugal Film Project 