Jill

Thought for a while what to post today on Christmas. Decided to be anti-festive and post a photo of Jill. Jill is a wonderful girl who fights for her sanity almost every day. I decided to post her as I remember her telling me how she never got a Christmas present in her life. A lot of time we think we are poor, but until you see how some people live overseas, you don't realize what poor really is. She figured she wasn't good enough for Santa to bring her presents when she was young and later figured Santa was only for the rich kids When I met her she was 19 years old and still had not received a Christmas present from anyone. I first met her in November and then later spent two days in December tracking her down just to make sure she got a present. In fact, bought her a whole bunch of stuff just for the heck of it, including her two younger sisters and brother. Never saw a bunch of people more happy and really made me feel good.

When photographing Jill I wanted to convey her somewhat dark mood and her feelings of solitude. I tried to capture this by having grainy and underexposed photos. A very simple photo.

In the second photo, I added some stuffed animals, but kept teh phto the same dark grainy appearance. Although I have other more happy photos of Jill, this is how I remembered her.