new project: song of myself

I've been contemplating this project for a long time. When I was in high school, a teacher friend of mine lent me a copy of Leaves of Grass. Back then, I had not yet realized that photography was my love and so I threw myself into poetry. I fell in love with the words of Walt Whitman, especially "Song of Myself". Time passed and I moved on to a love affair with photography but I still read voraciously. When I got my hands on a copy of Paper Towns and saw the way Margo left clues using lines from Whitman, my love was reignited. I've been scouring thrift stores and used book stores for years, looking for a leather-bound copy of Leaves of Grass and I finally found one. In rereading "Song of Myself", I found myself associating photographs with lines from the poem. My goal is to make a book combining my photographs--both those I've already taken and those I have yet to take--with Whitman's words.


Once before, I did a "Song of Myself" project but it was on a much smaller scale. I made two cards with the last two stanzas, one for myself and one for a friend.