Vows: Memory and Loss

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"Vows" examines a collection of deteriorating 1950s stereoscopic wedding slides, now existing as the sole remaining witness to a moment in time. These images, originally captured in vibrant Kodachrome and viewed through specialized stereoscopic devices, have transformed over seven decades into abstract artifacts where physical decay creates new artistic meaning. The scratches, cracks, and altered colors that mark these glass plates don't merely document my mother's wedding - they speak to the impermanence of both memories and materials. With all attendees now deceased, these fragile slides serve as the last tangible connection to this event, their deterioration paradoxically preserving a different kind of truth about time, memory, and loss.

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This unintentional collaboration between the original photographer, time's erosion, and my contemporary recontextualization speaks to larger truths about memory, preservation, and how meaning transforms over time. The project juxtaposes the hopeful formality of 1950s wedding photography with the physical deterioration of these glass plates, creating a poignant commentary on the temporality of both photographs and marriages themselves.

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Wedding photography holds a significant place in photographic history. By the 1950s, as photography became more accessible and culturally embedded, it embraced new formats like color photography and innovative presentation methods. In 1956, my mother Mary married Frank in a formal ceremony at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Boston. The photographer provided not only traditional prints but also a series of 40 glass dual-image stereoscopic slides - a novelty that reflected the post-war boom in consumer photography and new ways of commemorating life events.

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These stereoscopic slides, viewed through a special device, created an illusion of depth by presenting slightly different angles to each eye. Now, seventy years later, these slides have developed their own artistic vocabulary. After my mother's death in 2021 at age 86, I had these family photographs professionally scanned. The resulting images revealed unexpected beauty: faded colors, cracked glass, and pockmarked surfaces that transformed formal documentation into abstract artistic expression.

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The Kodachrome film, known for its vibrant saturated colors, combined with the colorful bridesmaid dresses to create a distinctive 1950s aesthetic. Time has altered these once-vivid scenes, creating something entirely new. What began as careful documentation has matured into a series displaying time's erosion and decay, creating an interesting tension between the hopefulness of wedding photography and the reality of impermanence. These images have become metaphors for a marriage that ultimately ended in divorce, the deterioration of the medium reflecting the dissolution of the relationship it documented.

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The series contains over 40 images of these scans, along with my photographs documenting the viewfinder, the physical slides, and traditional wedding photographs. Together, they create a multi-layered exploration of how time transforms both materials and meaning.

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These transformed images now exist as both artifact and art - no longer mere documentation of a wedding day, but as visual metaphors for the nature of memory and time itself. The deterioration that might typically be seen as damage has instead created ethereal new works, where formal poses dissolve into abstract color fields and traditional wedding photography transforms into contemporary art. What began as a celebration of permanence - both of marriage and photographic memory - has evolved into a meditation on impermanence, loss, and unexpected beauty. These images serve not only as the last witnesses to a moment in time, but as testimony to how meaning itself transforms, creating new truths from the intersection of intention, time, and chance.