We hit King John’s Castle in Limerick in the last few days of the Ireland visit and with Inna willing to play the role in costume, we pulled together a black and white shoot that suited the surrounds.
The castle has been at the heart of Limerick City since 1210 and it would have been wrong to shoot in the region without paying some kind of tribute to such an iconic remnant of the past.
We opted to try for a period shoot and the folk at the castle were kind enough to allow us to do so. We managed to ghost some and stage others but at the end of the day ended up with a lovely mix that we will likely remember for a long time.
I have added just three at the end of this blog; hope you enjoy!
Other than some fun pics with Erin down the Mill Road, this turned out to be the last shoot of my visit and concluded some wonderful memories for me of my time there.
This is what led to me thinking about the whole importance of memories as a concept for this blog.
You see, there is no full time recording of our lives that goes on as we move from birth to death. There is no written book that chronicles all that happens us in some Orwellian manner that we can recall.
Our view of life is generally formed on the back of the memories that we have built for ourselves and the experiences that these memories bring.
Some of these memories are good and others not so but the fillers between them tend to get lost in the story of our lives. Mundane doesn’t make it into our memory banks and if our lives finally do flash before our eyes before we go, we won’t be recalling that day we spent in the office working on some Word document seven years ago.
Nor will the people around us that carry us forward in their hearts. They likely will remember something we did with them and in the retelling of who we were to others, will probably skip over that document we were working on, if they even know about it.
So, while certain mundane shit might seem important at a given moment in time, it is more important to keep our lives in perspective. We need to be aware of falling into a pattern of making no new memories or of leaving others with no real memories of us.
The story of our lives is simply a collection of these memories and while some write books that are captivating and filled with love and adventure, others seem to settle for a story that will gather dust on a forgotten shelf in a forgotten library.
Each day that we wake up, life presents us with an opportunity to create a memory. A memory for ourselves or for those around us. If we spend that day in bed or dozing on a couch in front of the TV, then we have scorned that chance to advance our life story even a fraction.
This is one of the reasons I love photography. My camera and I have become best friends since I first picked it up years ago to create pictures for my Dad. What originally was simply an attempt to help fashion images for the man I loved most in the world, turned out to be a life-altering way of creating memories for myself and those I am fortunate enough to share a life with.
I guess what I am trying to say is that whatever your own equivalent to the camera is, grab hold of it today and go somewhere and make a memory. Better yet, take someone you love with you and make one for them while you are at it!
… just a thought.
