Monday, October 31, 2016

Exhibition Photo #2

Exhibition print #1 looks OK for the coming AGSA show. I have now started testing and have made a mask for the #2 print. My second choice from Dads last week is a photo that shows some of the fear and desperation associated with dying. I remember dad staring at me quietly a number of times those last few days. The neg I am printing I printed for the Alberta Open show a while back. It is a photo of dad looking up at me with striped venetian blind light on his face and soldier. To me this picture speaks to the fear of dying, the bars of light echoed in the blanket are a metaphor for the loss of freedom that cancer brought to my father. He could no longer walk or move easily, he was on morphine for the pain, all he could do was lay in his hospital bed and wait for the inevitable, he was trapped. It was a sad and fearful time. My mom and the family did the best we could to keep him happy and comfortable but the end was in sight. What must dad have been thinking then? What do all people think that last week? Someday I will be in my fathers position feeling what he felt. I hope this photograph communicates that message with compassion, truth and passionate care.

Here is that same print (16x20 version)( hanging at the Jubilee Auditoriums Kaasa Gallery during the Alberta Open 2015 exhibition.

Dad "Fear" (stripped light) photo hanging at the Kaasa Gallery as part of Alberta Open 2015