Photographic Essay 05: Watchtower

WATCHTOWER

When I decided to make a photographic essay about my Father, I wanted to pay respect and say thank you to all the things that he has done for us. I was envisioning an essay without the typical photographic documents, of fake poses and fake smiles. I wanted to experience being him, followed him around for a few weeks sporadically from December thru March. The visuals lent by a toy camera like a Holga gave the images the dream-like quality that I was aspiring for, the almost exact representations and flashes of memories. Objects and spaces where a much more stronger representation of my memories fact and fiction in introducing my Father, My watchtower.

While I was growing up, I always saw my father as this mythic presence that exudes a strong aura. It has never escaped my mind while I was growing up, all the weird contraptions and devices, flaring temper, and the difference on how he makes you feel secured and loved. I knew beyond my years that my father, the man I looked up to was way different than the average father that I could remember.

It was late at night, my Father and his brood where in a car that skidded off the road and fell of the bridge. My father then on his adolescence suffered the most of the passengers. He incurred a spinal cord injury, loosing some of his motor skills and sensations below the injury. His bowel and bladder function as well as his reflex erection were all affected by the injury. Having all these but was still able to raise and conceive five children who have now become respectable in they’re own right never ceased to amaze me.

As I slowly became a man myself I understood what he had to go through to provide us with everything that we need with utmost effort. He wasn’t the perfect specimen for a Man, he wasn’t a perfect Son, he wasn’t a perfect Husband, and he wasn’t a perfect Father. With all these frailty and obvious disabilities he has always been Man enough to stand for us and provide us with whatever was needed. And with stories of men with normal disposition succumbing to the pressures of Fatherhood, gave up and leaving they’re family. My father emotionally, mentally, and spiritually towered above us all.

17:31, 01 January 2010