Tony Urban Photography – Senior Photo Art, Pittsburgh Wedding Photographer – Somerset, Johnstown, Greensburg

On Life is easily the most ambitious project I’ve decided to tackle thus far. It will be a multi-part series of photos chronicling several different phases and aspects of life. Currently, I have 3 different parts planned – “On Birth”, “On Love” and “On Dying”. The titles are pretty self explanatory, but I’ll go ahead and discuss them further anyway.

“On Birth” – As the title implies, the photos will be chronicling the process of birth, such as the expectant mother, a newborn infant, the family with their new addition, etc. I’m looking for several participants so please contact me if you’re interested.

“On Love” – This series will cover everything from grade school crushes and teenage romances to couples tying the knot and throughout their lives as married people. Obviously I won’t have any trouble finding married couples, but the other couples in love might be more challenging to find and photograph.

“On Dying” – I know this sounds morbid and perhaps it is, but death is part of life. I anticipate that this will be a hard series to shoot, both emotionally and in terms of finding willing participants. But, as in the book “Tuesdays With Morrie”, I feel people who are nearing the end of their lives have a special kind of wisdom and peace that no one else has and that deserves to be documented.

As always, I’ll post more about the projects on the blog and on my Art site (which should be fully functioning within few weeks).

In the past, I’ve mentioned my grandmother’s struggles with Alzheimer’s Disease. Over the past several years, we’ve watched helplessly as she had everything stolen from her – her memory, her personality, her dignity, her freedom. Seeing her fight the losing battle against this disease, and seeing the effect it’s had on our family, has been crushing.

I’ve recently began making portraits of my grandmother, and those photos have inspired me to produce Fading Away. I’m hoping to find several other families whose loved ones have been afflicted with Alzheimer’s and who will allow me to meet with them, photograph their loved one, and tell that person’s story. Our society looks at Alzheimer’s Disease as “forgetfulness”. Most people know it causes a person to lose their memory, but don’t understand the other effects of the disease. Through Fading Away, I want to help educate people about this disease, which is on the precipice of becoming an epidemic (by age 80, fully one half of all people will have been afflicted with Alzheimer’s). I also hope that, by telling the stories of people who have had their lives stolen from them by the illness, that I can put a face on the illness and help further research toward finding a cure.