Koop-ed this from Michelle's blog. Very inspirational I guess? I'm inspired to be a photographer. There's so much photos can convey.





My mum died suddenly on September 4th, 2006.

After she died, I realised how much she’d been shielding me from my father’s mental state.
He doesn’t have alzheimers, but he has no short-term memory, and is often lost.

I took him to my mother’s funeral, and to the burial,
but when we got home, he’d ask me every 15-20 minutes where my mother was.
I’d explain carefully that she had died, and we’ve been to her funeral.

This was shocking news to him.

Why had no one told him?
Why hadn’t I taken him to the funeral?
Why hadn’t he visited her in the hospital?

He had no memory of these events.

After a while, I realised I couldn’t keep telling him that his wife had died.
He didn’t remember and it was killing both of us,
to re-live her death constantly.

I decided to tell him she’s gone to Paris, to take care of her brother, who was sick.

And that’s where she is now.
This exhibition is part of a journal.
An ongoing record of my father, and of our relationship.
For whatever days we have left together.





I asked my father to look in the mirror, while I took his photograph.

Now, the things you have to realise about my dad is that
he was a very handsome man when he was young.
When people talk about ‘film star handsome’, well, that was my dad.
In fact, he WAS a film star (of sorts), in Hollywood, during the 1930’s.

So when he looks in the mirror, he sees a man ravaged,
a man no longer beautiful,
and that upsets him deeply.

You see, he’s still vain at 98.
In fact, his vanity can be quite extraordinary.

I tried to take him to the doctor a few months ago, but on the way out,
he caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror.

He was so horrified wit his appearance, that he refuse to leave the house until
I found a ‘black pencil’ to dye his white hair with..



I find these scraps of writing all over the house…
they are a glimpse into his mind,
the disquiet he tries to hide from me.

Where is everyone.

What’s going on.

How lost he feels.







My dad spends enormous amounts of time in the toilet.

Because he has no short term memory, he can be in there for 2-3 hours at a time.

It’s both heartbreaking, and infuriating.

He’ll do his business, then stand up, and as he’s putting on his pants,
say, “Wait a second - I have to go”

If you try and reason wit him, and explain that he’s just gone,
he’ll look at you as if you’re an idiot…



Eating is often a miserable experience.

I realise now why my mother cooked the same meals over and over,
towards the end of her life.

They were the only things my father would eat.

The ONLY thing he’ll eat with any regularity is eggs.
Scrambled eggs, egg salad, egg-drop soup from the local chinese.
He eats insane amounts of eggs.

And yet, when I took him to the doctor recently, his cholesterol was down!

Maybe there are health benefits to an all-eggs diet!



Because my parents had me so late,
my dad was essentially retired when I was growing up.

But for my ambitious, driven father, he wasn’t retired at all,
just working on his next career.

Being an artist.

I have so many memories of him listening to opera, sketching, painting, sculpting.

Although he doesn’t paint anymore, he still sees.
He still has the artistic impulse.

He was admiring the sunset, saying that he could make a ‘whole series’ of paintings
around those wonderful colours…

The urge is still there, even if the physical ability is not..





This sums up everything about my father.

It’s who he is, and it’s what’s left.
Ambition.

As a child, I grew up on stories of my father’s daring in the business world.

For him, everything was always possible.

A few months ago, we were reading the paper together.
He was engrossed in the novelist Sidney Sheldon’s obituary,
and it mentioned that he’d record books into a tape recorder,
producing work at a prolific rate.

My dad turned to me, and said, “We could do that!”

He always pushed me to do better, to work harder.

It actually made me a little crazy.

And now, it’s the one question he always asks me.

What am I doing in my career? How am I furthering myself?







Nothing cheers up my dad, like stories of my success.
So if he’s down, or obsessing about something,
I’ll immediately conjure up a blossoming career.

I’m shooting for The New York Times. The New Yorker.
Multi-million dollar advertising campaigns.

Sometimes it’s true, sometimes not.

But it doesn’t matter.

The important thing is to fill him with as much joy as I can.

His face bursts with happiness.

He’ll say “I have to tell ALL my friends, my son is famous!”



I found one of my dad’s films.

It’s a Charlie Chan detective story, shot in the 30’s.

We watched it together this afternoon.
(That’s him on the right)

I don’t think he’d seen it since it was made.

He told me that he was too young to grow the required pencil mustache,
so he had to have it ‘glued on’.

It’s amazing to see my dad, not as my father,
but as a young man.

Vigorous, lucid, filled with life.

Me, my mother, our lives together,
all shrouded in the vast unknown before him…



Sometimes, when we’re talking,

my dad will stop, and sigh,
and close his eyes.

It’s then that I know, that he knows.

About my mum.

About everything.