Carrying on...
When Chris died, he left behind more than broken hearts and empty arms. He left behind a collection of beautiful photography. About a year after his death, his children and I decided that we couldn't let his photography just sit unseen. We decided we would put it out there for the world to see. Not only that, but we would use his photography to raise money for two places that meant so much to him and still mean so much to all of us - The Charleston Trust in his native Sussex and The Highland Hospice in Inverness. A trip to Sussex nearly always included a trip to Charleston, a farmhouse which was occupied by Virginia Woolf's sister, artist Vanessa Bell and her group of artists/writers/sculptures. It was a veritable salon of its time. As for the hospice, they gifted us with more time, and we can never thank them enough for that.
It took me four years, but this past September, on the fourth anniversary of Chris' death, we launched Chris Mawson Photography. We are still being found, slowly but surely, and I hope to find ways to drive more traffic to the site as I do more research into keywords, phrases, algorithms, etc. Every single penny raised will be divided between the two charities. Running the site is my pleasure and I hope my work honours Chris as I hope it can and will.
When Chris and I met, he was in a position, after a lifetime of working, to dedicate his time and efforts to his photography. As many of you may know from my old blog, Chris and I traveled with his camera equipment as our constant companions. The beautiful photographs he took prior to around 2010 were lost, unfortunately, when a hard drive crashed. I have been unable to locate the hard drive or the photographs. His beautiful images from our trip to Washington, DC, New York, and Boston are lost forever. Not only those, but photographs from our travels around England and Scotland. At least I can still recall them in my mind. I just wish I could share them with the rest of the world.
Chris was never as happy nor as animated as when he was taking photographs. I used to refer to him as my little mountain goat, as we would stop the car in various settings and he scramble up hills and down glens to get just the right photo. He could not have known it at the time, but his regular self-portraits have been treasured by us all since he died.
If you haven't seen the website, please do visit. As I said, every penny made through the sale of his downloadable photographs will go back out to Charleston and the hospice. Please take time to read about Chris, too. It was a comfort to create the site. It kept him close, as he always is.
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