My son, Tom, sent this image to me while researching our family history as part of a genealogy project. He found this grave marker among the weeds of a Chicago cemetery and photographed it with his iPhone 6 camera. He made this picture in color to document the burial place of my Grandmother’s sister, Emma, who died in 1912 at the age of 15.

While not originally intended as a work of photographic expression, my son’s photo of my Great Aunt’s grave marker becomes a powerfully expressive image once I crop it, move in on the detail, and convert it from vibrant color to this soft, sepia toned monochromatic image. The pinkish marble stone and the vivid green weeds recede, simplifying the photograph. The sepia speaks of age, while the detail on the stone takes over – a branch inscribed by man upon the stone leaps forward to symbolically bond with the weeds, a work of nature.

The image now tells the story of a young life cut short, yet still remembered as very much a part of the natural world.