“I am my own ghost, haunting the memories I love the most.”
Author Unknown
“April Snowy Landscape” by tvdxer is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
“Bell with Crows” by MKzing is licensed under CC0 1.0 DEED.
For this entry, I didn’t want to just choose a random photo simply because it was pretty… Thus, I ended up searching for hours to find the “perfect” image. In the beginning, nothing was screaming “THIS IS IT,” even after I searched a combination of items and terms, trying to use my hobbies and interests to find a photo that I connected with. Then I stumbled upon this one.
At first, my mind went to “How creepy would this be at night?” which morphed into “What if in the middle of nowhere you started hearing the clang of church bells?” I thought the two together would create a perfectly sinister setting. I even ran with the idea of For Whom the Bell Tolls for an undisclosed amount of time before the realization hit…
In January 2021, my father unexpectedly passed away; a hole was created, and it lingered. However, I was a new mom and never allowed myself to fully grieve… I felt I had to stay strong for my infant daughter, my mother, and my siblings – even as the “baby” of the family. We are now in 2024, three years later, and I still don’t think I’ve properly grieved.
…What originally drew me to the picture and the audio clip was mere intrigue and curiosity, and a knack for storytelling…
I see now that the two elements have combined to create the place I know I must face eventually. I know it’s a journey I must complete, but that doesn’t make it any less frightening. This is the place of grief – where I must process it as it comes and survive the night to find the day.
I am so sorry to hear about your father, and that you weren’t able to properly mourn his loss. I feel that the picture you selected paired with the sound, gives a mournful feeling of losing a loved one. I went through similar pangs of loss when I experienced a miscarriage the same week my grandmother died. It almost felt like I wasn’t able to properly mourn for one while dealing with the physical and mental pain of the other. Ironically, it was in the dead of winter, and our family graveyard is eerily similar to the location of this image, surrounded by woods and up on a hill.
I feel that no matter how you paired the sound, it would be haunting, but the photo on its own isn’t necessarily scary. Pairing the two together definitely reshaped the overall atmosphere.
Thank you for sharing!
Hi Erin!
I’m sorry to hear about your loss, I’m sure that had been a turbulent time for you. It’s immensely difficult to grieve when so many things need taking care of and I hope you find the time to soon, no matter how scary it is.
Your post is deeply moving, your added explanation adds even more meaning to the photo and audio than when on their own. The photo on its own looks eerie but not necessarily unapproachable and the audio on its own is the undiscerning toll of church bells. However, paired together it makes the location in the photo ominous and dreadful. With the addition of your blog post, it clearly depicts a foreboding setting. I’m glad that what you created could resonate with you in such a powerful way.