After The Crossing

By Siena Pennington

After The Crossing is an abstract portrait series of a man who has fully lived his life, since 1944. This is a story of immigration, war, ambition, brotherhood, loss, and the relentless spirit of a man who chose to keep moving forward.

Through harsh black-and-white portraits, I layered exposures, reflections, fragments of photographs, and the passage of time, to represent the many lives held within one person.

He came to America willing to take a chance on an uncertain future. He worked hard, served his country, built a life, and searched for the promise of something better. Along the way, he experienced the complications of love and relationships, the weight of sacrifice, and the devastating loss of his brother, with whom he had served in the military.

But this is not simply a story about hardship, it is about how brutal existence is the real tribute to true courage, determination, curiosity, and spirit.

The photographs move between past and present, between the young man he once was and the older man he became. His brother appears through memory. His younger self appears through photographs and reflections. Multiple versions of him occupy the same frame, suggesting that none of our former selves truly ever completely disappear, they are always within us, projecting.

The blacks in these photos I represent the weight of memory and loss. The illuminated eyes suggest the part of him that remains awake beneath everything life has placed upon him. The photographs within photographs become fragments of a life that cannot be returned to, only remembered.

For the viewer, my intention is not to tell you exactly what he feels. With my piece I want to invite you to feel the tension between grief and resilience, longing and ambition, memory and the present, facets so important within existence. Try to recognize something of your own lives in him: the people you have lost, the risks they might have taken, the younger versions of yourselves you sometimes still see, and the things you carry quietly while continuing forward.

This is a story about what life takes from us, and how you respond.

But more importantly, it is about what remains.