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“Be that person in your family that people want to talk to when they're going through their toughest times. It really is a rewarding feeling.”

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The Silence Shoot 2011

The past few photography posts that have been made are all from the 2011 year of this movement. This was the very first year of the shoot, and it was a very surprising year. I remember the set up as if it were in my living room now.

We had a giant, white sheet stretched across one of the walls of our living room. It was there from when one of my roommates (and dear friends), Sammie, was taking her photography classes. She was using my best friend, and best muse (at the time) as her model for her images. Across from this makeshift backdrop was our couch, just underneath our front window that looked out onto the various buildings in our complex. Just before the couch was a single floor lamp, as tall as I was, and had six arms that each bore a bulb. This would be my lighting setup. If I remember correctly, I had already purchased a roll of red duct tape for a separate project, and we used it for this shoot to try to emulate the idea of “The Day of Silence”.

This project originated out of me trying to show my family members who were depressed that they were not alone, that there were people out there who cared about them. The people who did the shoot in the beginning were a few of my close friends who just happened to be around and at my townhouse in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Then, it grew. My friends Derreck and Sarah sent out a mass-text and even more people showed up. I remember taking photos until around 1 in the morning. It was exhilarating, and it was the start of something that would one day change my day-to-day life.