I was born in the British West Indies, but I have lived 34 of my 54 years of life in the United States. I have lived on the islands of St. Vincent, Bequia, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and Long Island (Queens County, NY). I have lived in New York City (Borough of Queens), Atlanta (Georgia), Ann Arbor (Michigan), and Central New Jersey (Plainsboro, Franklin Park, Montgomery Township). Of my 34 years in the USA, I have lived in Montgomery Township the longest. Each of those places has had an impact on me, and none are like each other.
But additionally, I married a Brahmin Hindu woman from Gujarat, India and I have embraced the richness of that culture as well. We were married in a Hindu temple and our children, Shaan and Kiran, have traditional Indian first names.
So which culture should I choose to represent via photography? My British West Indies heritage? My adopted American or East Coast or Central New Jersey culture? Or the selected Asian culture? Each culture is layered one on top the other and over time created the person writing this blog.
How do I fit that all into one photograph?
For this post, I cheated. I took several iPhone 11 Pro photographers that I captured over the year, photographs that represent various cultural elements imported them as layers in Adobe Photoshop and used the Auto-Blend feature and stacked the images. I used pictures of pizza, local micro-breweries, Indian food, hikes in the woods, my wife, etc.
The result is an indefinable mess, just like me.
It seems that theOnlyD800intheHameau was similarly challenged but did find a way to choose.
Submitted as part of my 52 Week Smartphone Challenge
