Was Once Home

I took this picture last summer between the months of June and August. This past September, we put Sadie to sleep. I took her to the vet, sat in the room with her, and waited for the vet to come in. My dad would not come at all, and my mom stayed in the lobby of the vet's office. I watched the vet inject a needle into Sadie. I watched her breathing go faint, and then... nothing. She was dead. That was it. The life that was in her was no more. Everything changed. I use to come home and she was there to greet me. She no longer is.

I started this project of photographing my parents home, while I was finishing my thesis for grad school. My thesis focused on two photographers. The photographer whose images inspired me for this project is Larry Sultan (Pictures from Home). I am interested in the change that happens over time. The house I grew up in, the one my parents bought before I was born, is the one they still live in today. Although I haven't lived there for years, it is still home to me. Yet at the same time so much of it has changed that I don't always feel as though I belong there. It is weird to be there when no one else is.