Amanda Martin

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Age: 23
City: Osawatomie
Country: United States

Joined: Aug 2009

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Journey to Resurrection

To have truly lived life, one must first suffer through sorrow and tribulation. The path that life has taken me down has been littered with more atrocities than I care to admit. When I finally reached my lowest point and knew that I could no longer take this journey on my own, I found God. “Journey to Resurrection” is my own interpretation of this path to enlightenment.

I first started shooting for this collection without knowing that one day this would turn into an entire collection and more so a chronology of my life over the last year. I began with the Oakwood cemetery in Osawatomie, Kansas. Using digital photography to capture numerous shots at once, I took over 100 photos in the course of an hour. After viewing the photos I thought that having them in vibrant color did not capture the true essence of what the cemetery genuinely is. During the editing process, I wanted to stay honest to what the original shots were. I did minor cropping to edit out objects that should not be in the photo, e.g. edges of buildings, reflections, people, etc. After that the only thing that I did was change the original color image to either black and white or sepia. That changed the focus of the picture from the scenery around it to the objects within the photo. After that photo shoot I discovered that I had an engrained passion for locations with religious symbology due to my emotional connection to them.

For a while after that life interrupted the progression of the shooting process. When I was finally able to resume I felt more of a need for spiritualism in my life than ever before. The next location that I photographed was the Old Stone Church, in Osawatomie as well. The church it self is approximately 150 years old and has been maintained in the original condition that it was used in. I thought to myself that I would find more of a connection to the Infinite if I found an unadulterated place of God. I continued to venture through more cemeteries and finally an active catholic convent.

The convent revealed truth, wisdom, glory, purity and magnificence the moment that I stepped onto the immaculate campus. There was an instantaneous delineation between what I had seen in previous locations as compared to this one. I truly felt for the first time that I had found the spiritual peace that my heart and soul had longed for.

It is easy to detect the negativity in the collection and to see the progression to the passion of Christ. There is no comprehensible way to fully define my photography by itself. I am a photographer that literally lives through her work. My photographs are the autobiography of my life. This is only the first chapter…