“Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young.” — Douglas MacArthur

Alex is recognized as ‘more of a photo artist that just a photographer’. He discovers the beauty and the nature in human, and he shares his work on his Flickr. The series ‘hands’ really inspired me when I am doing documentary photography. It contains 31 images, each image tell a story and have the power and also the attraction to make audience to stay on it. Also it makes people want to know more about the owner. This is the magical power of hands photography.

Alex is a photographer that I found when I was doing my last project ‘Evidence’; I found this work when I typed ’elderly hands photography’ in Google. The first project I did was ‘Work’, I photograph a pair of hand from a garage man, because of the work, his hands is always covered and carried with a layer of dirt, it makes the lines on his hands become more clear; the second project was ‘Evidence’, I took photos of my uncle’s mother, who is a 87 years old chronically ill lady.

As I got positive feedback of the hand shoot from the last two projects, therefore, I think it is a good reason to keep producing the same thing in this project as well, as doing hands shoot with elderly is such a special experiences and also a good opportunities to show some thing that is only own by elderly, which is the wrinkles on their hands.

Not to mention, hands of elderly are powerful and convincing with the wrinkles. ‘If these old hands could speak, just what would they say? What incredible stories would they tell? In a series where we’re left with more questions than answers’ (Yoo, 2010). The wrinkles on hands shows how elders held the joys of a lifetime, the sadness of times lost, worked tirelessly to care for a family and for themselves. Hand can show the vestige of age, it is an evidence which contain life stories of a person, a truth and something that we cannot avoid and lie; just like fingerprints, even though everyone it, but we are all special and unique, each pair of hand can add character, present different feeling and impact. Therefore, I think this is the reason why I am so fascinated on hands photography.

In this project I am going to interview three elderly, they are Philis, Colin and Marygold who are from different background. By listening on their own story and life experience, it seems that I have more feeling on what they had went through and know more about them. The wrinkles on their hands also help a lot in storytelling.

This project will be the third time I do hands photography, from the previous experiences, I know that light control is a very important key to get a perfect and focus image. In my opinion, use natural lighting is always the best way to do photography, but because at this time, all my objects are elderly, I will need to think at their side, consider on their physical strength, so I won’t be ask so much for them to coordinate with me. What I want is they sit in a comfortable place and share their own story to me without causing worries and problems. Therefore, I will take a flash gun and a flash blender with me in case in their house have no enough nature light for me to do the hands photography.