Storytelling was the earliest means of passing down information from generation to generation. Growing up with my grandparents they could never tell a short story about them or the other members of my family. This created imagery of my ancestors through the stories they told. Mother’s Side is a self-portrait series of fictional re-enactment of stories inspired by the female ancestors through my mother’s lineage. These stories allowed me to create a portrait of my ancestor of a moment that was not necessarily documented but was only passed down through a story. When looking through the vernacular photographs I found in scrapbooks I used only these images as reference to pose. I found the pictures vague in understanding who my ancestor was and wanted to know more about them. Scrapbooks are pre-determined and edited by our ancestors to create a depiction of themselves to their descendants. Our ancestors choose the photographs they want to be depicted of themselves, and this only allows us to see how they wanted to be represented. But by listening to family stories, it allows for me to create an image that wasn’t photographed. It enables me to interpret my ancestor myself instead of mimicking an image they have chosen. These stories inspired a new narrative and I felt by restaging them (with me in the place of my female ancestor), I was creating a personal statement of my own contribution to my family’s narrative.