C.J (Cyril J.)
I have had the privilege of documenting precious memories for community for friends, family, clients and myself for almost 15 years now. While I provide professional photography and media services though C.J Cromwell Photography, KIROS images is a special outlet for me to share elements of art, life & legacy that is behind the images I post in my portfolios and on social media.
In life, I have come to appreciate how precious our moments are on earth and every breath is a blessing and an opportunity. I want to ensure that my time here and the time of other people that I come across and share life experience with will have a place to come to reminisce/remember/recall precious moments in time. All things fade, but the faded pieces make space and possibility for re-newed beauty.
I believe in celebrating Life and Legacy.
As a media artist (a documentarian and archivist of sorts) I have had the benefit of appreciating the process of media archiving/sharing in a professional and personal capacity. As I saw myself advancing in years, the “scarcity” of time became more apparent and the “sacred” duty of helping people preserve images of “frozen” moments of time was something that was truly special. For this reason, I take my photography and video work very seriously.
When I began documenting community events, family members and friends in the early days of my photography work I preserved these documents over time to the best of my ability. Accumulating hundreds of thousands of images for myself and clients on an ever expanding system of hard drives. After my daily working hours I spent many evenings over the course of many years transferring my media archives through a number of physical and cloud-based storage solutions and doing my best to consolidate and organize all of the files.
Everything has a reason and a purpose.
It has been a very long process… I came across many technical challenges and incurred a great deal of expenses, but I see this documentation as part beauty and part struggle… the power of telling stories and sharing perspective – education from a non-colonial source is precious in this world, at this time.
All my friends and family members have heard me constantly referring to my media archive, blog, etc. as an ongoing project for years now, so I am happy that I was able to pour so much into the creation of this platform.
KIROS images
To me KIROS means a “divine time” a “majestic moment” and a reminder not to take time, people and life for-granted – to be thankful, even when the trials of life seem unfair and we can’t make any sense of the testimony from our vantage point.
With this sense of purpose, I have worked to let go of my “need” to know and control things in my life and the lives of others. Bad things happen, good things happen too… instead of being caught up in the inevitable (and unpredictable) rolling dynamic of life, what are we learning and what are we offering? How are we sharing our gifts with the those that come after us?
Thinking that we are suppose to live forever is vanity in a physical sense and it is connected to the insecurity of aging and fear of time passing. What if I told you that “all time” has already past and we are just playing out our roles? Perhaps this reflection might be helpful in removing a piece of the anxiety of the unknown, to instead focus on the possibilities of being a part of the process, not always worrying about the (inevitable end) product of life that we do not have full control over…?
Please enjoy this platform as I share from my extensive archives and document the wonders that Life has to teach and offer.
The Creator has given us an amazing opportunity and I am thankful for it.
In Peace, Strength & Humility,
– CJ
