I knew I wanted to explore themes of LIFE and LOVE and DEATH.
I knew Lakewood Cemetery was the perfect setting and David & Emilie were the perfect models.
I knew they were to be dressed in black & white - almost as if for a wedding - and we needed red roses.
And that day, when we stumbled upon a majestic, old willow tree, the final piece fell into place: I knew that Shakespeare's words - the ultimate commentary on life and love and death - would weave it all together.
“The love that follows us sometimes is our trouble,
which we still thank as love.”
“For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye?”
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.”
“The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.”
“Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”
“The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow.
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow.
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmured her moans,
Sing willow, willow, willow.
Her salt tears fell from her, and softened the stones
Sing willow, willow, willow—”
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. ”
