Generations

The story behind this photo

Every year for the past five years or so we have an employee art show that a handful of hotels participate in. All the previous art shows, I had something to submit. But this year (2010) I had nothing. Audrey from H.R. (human resource) asked me if I had anything to submit this year and I told her that I didn't. I had no ideas, no inspirations...nothing. She then asked if she could show me something. I said, sure. She took me to her office and showed me this old black and white photo of the hotel circa 1955.

As soon as I saw this image, I got excited and said, "Yes! I can do something with this!" I asked her for a copy. The next day I took my camera and went across the street and positioned myself approximately where I felt that camera was in...1955. I snapped a few pics, went home and layed my image over the black and white image, matched up the molding on the building, touched it up and this is what I came up with.

After I came up with the image, I decided that I wanted to title it and I sat staring at this image for almost two days trying to figure out what I wanted to call it. Friends and co workers gave all kinds of suggestions but I wanted the name to sound cool and give it meaning. That's when I came up with the title; Generations.

After I felt the image was complete, I came up with an idea that was an "after thought." I didn't tell anyone except for a few people that don't work at the hotel. The original black and white side of the image has only three people standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street, two men and a woman in the middle. What I did was created what is known as an "Easter egg" in the image. I inserted myself and another employee, Sen in the photo. Sen is a bellman and friend who started at the hotel the same time I did. I'm the one in the bowler hat. He's the one on the far right of the people on the corner.