EMPTY NEST SYNDROME
A Documentary Photography Project 2016-2020 by Carol Olerud, FRPS Photos by Carol Olerud
In 2016, the last two of my three children left home at the same time. Suddenly I was not a
mother in the same sense as before. I had been a stay-at-home mum. I was so busy raising three children born within a five-year period, that I had never stopped to consider what I would do once they left home. I fell into the cliché of empty nest syndrome rather heavily and discovered it was a real thing!
As part of a Master to Master photography group, I decided to try to photograph my emotions and created a long-term project. We had a mentor and, with the whole group, we discussed the project together as it developed. All of us had various personal projects. A very difficult task lay at hand. My first images came over as if someone had died. Interpreting my feelings, it actually was a mourning process I was going through. To analyse this, it was put to me to photograph other people who had gone through the same thing.
SELFIE: Empty Nester by Carol Olerud
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