Dear Friend; A 40th Birthday Project

As my fortieth birthday approached, I thought about how I wanted to commemorate it. I considered many options; getting something tangible for myself like a tattoo or a fancy piece of jewelry, or doing something daring like skydiving (but I hate heights!). None of it seemed quite right. What seemed most "me" was to embrace my documentarian ways and use that to celebrate, in some way, the relationships in my life. I decided to use this milestone birthday as an excuse to make a quasi-tribute to some of my favorite people.

This project is my love letter to some of my nearest and dearest, written with photos and audio (and some words, too). They each helped me both by participating in these interviews, and by being in my life; inspiring me, encouraging me, supporting me, making me laugh, letting me cry, and giving me the profound honor of letting me do the same for them. 

Click on the photos below to visit each "love letter".  I will be adding a new one every day, in chronological order - from those I met most recently, to those I've known the longest, until April 2, 2016, so please feel free to come back and visit!

Read more about the project's process at the very bottom. 

Dear Friend's Process; Each friend was sent a list of about twenty questions and were asked to choose three of those questions to answer during our recorded conversation.  I shot most of the portraits in this project with either a Fuji T100s or my Canon 1D Mark IV. Because I couldn't physically get to a few of my friends, some of the portraits are from the last time I saw them (which could have been years ago). Audio was collected using my iPhone and edited for content and quality using Audacity (I apologize ahead of time - I am no audio pro). Suzanne's interview was recorded over FaceTime (again- see apology above). To keep the project from becoming even bigger than it already was, I stuck to interviewing only the women in my life (my wonderful male friends will have to wait for the next milestone birthday). They are presented in chronological order - from those I met most recently, to those I've known the longest.