Documentary, Signs of a Life - Heidi Marie Bell Photography

Signs of a Life

I gave up photographing for the pure sake of taking pictures a long time ago. Every photograph I make reveals a subject and simultaneously bears witness to my experience with it. To create a visual story is a privilege and an immense responsibility, an opportunity to honor the narrative without wholly denying my role in its creation. Every story I photograph pulls me in and changes me in some way. Photographs are the marks of what I truly see and the artifacts I leave along the way.

Signs and symbols are familiar. For Sharon, author, heart attack survivor, entrepreneur, IT recruiter, and faithful adherent to God, these observances hold more significant meaning. Living her life deeply and with an extraordinary penchant for transparency, she makes sense of her life through signs. Her health experience, the result of stress and anxiety, persistent companions she strives to evict, is only one nuance of her layered story, yet her spirituality takes root there, revealing her deepest concerns, and strengthening both her faith and ongoing affirmations of divine intervention in her life. Although she is very much in control of her life choices and the path she follows, she observes, experiences, and surrounds herself with guideposts that steer her along.

Signs of a Life draws on one woman’s extraordinary connection to the intangible world and presents a unique impression of her story. Photographs blending the ordinary with the extraordinary, and each in some way associated with one woman, let us peer into the life of a stranger, an oddly familiar and reassuring experience.