This past December I was sitting down at my Grandmother’s house on Christmas morning as we were exchanging gifts and looked across the room at ‘Granny’ (who was like a grandmother to me as a kid). She sat there with her red-tipped cane, smiling. I thought her 92-year-old face was full of character and she seemed to be truly enjoying herself, thought to myself that I needed to do a portrait of her, and a few seconds later I decided I should also see about doing a portrait of not only her, but Mama-Dot (my actual grandmother) and Mema as well. Just to be clear, both Mema and Granny are like grandmothers to me as well — I am only related to them through marriage but have been raised around them and always approach them with the same respect I would my Grandmother.

I knew my work would be cut out for me, as I already knew both Mama Dot and Mema were not fans of having their photos made at all. So I moseyed on over to Granny on the couch and asked if she would let me do a portrait of her that afternoon. With a worried look she reached up with both hands, grabbing her hair, saying something along the lines of ‘Baby, I would have to have something done with my hair first.’ I quickly told her there was no need to worry about that and that I thought she looked amazing just as she was — I wasn’t lying to her either. She seemed to be encouraged by this, so I mentioned about coming over that afternoon to her house to do the shots and she agreed.

So, after this, I went to scheming over how to do everything. Not just on how I wanted to photograph them but how I was going to get both Mema and Mama Dot to even let me photograph them. I came up with a plan and went at it. The shooting part was pretty simple – I wanted to get a portrait of all three of them in the chairs they always sat in while at home – and then another portrait of each one standing in front of some black felt I happened to have with me. It was the only background like material I had with me that would give some consistency between all three shots. The shots in their chairs were meant to have a casual feel to them and the portraits in front of the black background were meant to be more traditional — a very honest look at what they look like at this point in their life with no effort to hide either wrinkles or skin blemishes through lighting or in post-production. I wanted to capture each of them the way those that loved them saw them on a day-to-day basis, and not the way they may look on Easter Sunday at the church after having their hair all made up and such.

So I woke Granny from a nap Christmas afternoon when I came over to do the shots. She cruised into the living room with her walker and pretty much gave me all the time I wanted to do as many shots of her as I wanted. I think both of our efforts paid off…

The Chair Shot:

And the traditional portrait:

Here are a couple of extras I got of her that I felt were too good not to share as well:

I left her place that afternoon feeling great about what I got out of her. She seemed to have a good time with it all so that made it all the better for both of us. I went on to my folks’ place and quickly processed out a couple of the files that stood out to me (the first two seen above) to show both Mama Dot and Mema. As planned, I think them seeing those first shots of Granny worked to my advantage – as did my thought/plan – that it was likely that neither one of them would want to be the one person that refused to let me photograph them.

Here are the two shots I got of my grandmother, Mama-Dot that I was most happy with:

Once I felt like I had a couple of good shots of her I mentioned to my Uncle James (who was there at the time) about doing a shot of both me and her together. I showed him what to do with my camera and then got in the shot. Right as he was about to take the shot I kissed her on the check. He was a little late catching that but caught something even better instead — the look of pure disgust with me over the situation I had her in — a split second after I had kissed her. Where’s the love, Mama Dot?

I’m so proud to have that shot with us together — it captures her to a tee. She is not one to hold back on letting you know when she doesn’t like something and this shot shows it.

I left there once again feeling thrilled to have had her let me do the portraits of her. Two down, one to go. So I made my way on over to Mema’s house again, pretty certain that she would go ahead and let me do the shots of her as well. I sat and talked with her for a while and then ended up getting these two shots which I thought were great of her:

So I have now spent over a month looking at these photos on and off, trying to decide which shots to show and how to process them. Processing some of them out and then reprocessing them, worrying about making the wrong choice. Trying my best to make sure that there will not be anything for any one of the three to feel bad about once they see them. Last night after I started writing this, I thought I would call each of them and find out if there was any single quote – or words of wisdom – they might want to share with anybody that might read this post. This is what I got:

Edith ‘Granny’ Hudson said:

“From Genesis to Revelation — I believe it’s true.”

She is currently 92 and will be 93 in October. She has two children, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren with twins on the way. Sadly, she is nearly blind so she will never be able to clearly see the shots I made of her. I can only hope that her family will tell her that I did a good job and captured a little of her personality in them.

Dorothy ‘Mama Dot’ Reaves said:

“I have nothing to say at this time.”

I found this quite funny and ironic since she always seems quite willing to express her opinion on life in general, what somebody might be wearing, anything — the woman doesn’t hold back. I love calling her by her first name by the way — I like the name Dorothy; it’s just fun to say. She has three children, six grandchildren (including me) and eight great-grandchildren with another on the way. She is 84 and will be 85 in December.

Helen ‘Mema’ McHargue said:

“Family is everything to me — and that means I’m a very rich woman because of the family I have.”

Anybody that has been over to the McHargue family house on Christmas Eve knows this is true. I crash that party every year just because it is good to be around people that are so happy and loving toward each other. Mema has five children, ten grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren with another one on the way. She is 82 and will turn 83 in April.

I truly hope that I have given an honest representation of who each of these ladies are through all of this. I love each of them and so appreciate that they allowed me to photograph them. Thank you Mama-Dot, Granny and Mema — I hope that you will see these shots, feel good about, and appreciate who you are – knowing that a whole lot of other people do too.

Keith