Melissa Kaseman: All Along There You Were

All Along There You Were by Melissa Kaseman Melissa Kaseman is a San Francisco-based photographer with beautiful and heartbreaking stories to tell. The above project became the work that balanced the sorrow and loss and helped her process the darkness of grief into lightness in her life situation. They are metaphors for being 'in-between' emotional states and trying to understand something meaningful and pivotal. "Interested in photography's capability to suspend moments of transition, which are often over looked or forgotten, left only to be sensed when a memory is triggered, I use photography as a language to visually describe the moments that are significant to my life experience. Exploring themes concerning loss, illness, intimacy, and hope, I create vignettes of these moments that over time will grow to become an archive of my experience, reflecting an emotional map as I navigate through understanding the cycles of life. Driven by the intimate connection to the subject matter I use portraiture, still life, and landscape to create a visual language. Through the use of space within the frame, the photograph is to imply the stillness of contemplation and observation. Although the work is a direct reflection of myself, and my life experience, I aim to portray a poetic, open narrative. The photographs are meant to be quiet and contemplative, evoking a mood within the viewer, rather than revealing everything. " Words: Melissa Kaseman, Thisispaper Photography: Melissa Kaseman