Make a Wish Photo Series: 11/11

Pennies in a fountain, birthday candles, a clock that reads 11:11…This idea of the Make a Wish still life photo series came to me while voting in the 2024 Presidential election. The concept of casting a ballot and hoping for an outcome reminded me of so many things that we wish for regularly — we win some, we lose some. Making wishes is so normal in our culture and inherent to the human condition, with fountains full of pennies (and dollars) and habitual candles blown with our hopes floating away with each deep breath. We cannot resist the desire to make a wish.

The creative direction for this series took some time and tests to develop. I had a constant stream of Amazon deliveries to try and figure out what kind of clock or how to represent a fountain without having to get a life size one. The scale of everything was an obstacle. I ended up burying the lead, as the ballot became the one missing piece.

Then as I got into the retouching and curation process, the work grew deeper and more complex. Deciding on the scale of each item, the amount of sharpness and level of retouched perfection reminded me of my most detail-oriented days as a photographer, before digital and before social media. What appears to be simplicity on the surface, conceals the mental and emotional intricacies that were involved, much like the process our minds go through when making a wish, when we decide on that one thing that we want.

I’m looking forward to sharing this work, as it is personal and meaningful to me. Some of it required technical know-how and some of it relied on chance, which made it evolve with a life of it’s own. Let’s make a wish on 11/11.

View the Make a Wish Photo Series here.

updated on 11/11