©Sari Vennola

TRACES OF LIFE

I have taken many pictures of my mother and I have reflected on how hard it is to grow old in our culture that worships beauty and youth.

The starting point of my work Traces of life is my mothers sentence “my scars are my most beautiful jewellery”. I have photographed traces that passing time leaves on human. All events in life, joys and sorrows change us. Life we live and our choices make us what we will become as a human being. In my opinion a person should carry his traces of life like jewellery, because scars, inside and visible, are the jewellery of soul.

My models come in all ages and sizes and each have their individualities. Very often, and it's a shame they forget that they are beautiful as they are. All women are photographed naked, but I don’t consider my images to be actual nude pictures or nude studies. It is important that the traces of skin are shown. Side by side these black and white portraits are photographs of old jewellery.

I am interested in people and that change what happens to every one of us. I think we are very much trying to forget that every day we become a day older and our bodies change a little bit. Somehow our personality stays quite the same although our appearance change. We have to give up the past and grow to something new. Often we take an attitude that old people are almost invisible.