Post Haste

The first photograph was originally presented in black and white with the Holga application. The Holga application blurs the edges, heightens the contrast and gives a look to the photograph I sometimes utilize to either mask poor initial exposure, cover distracting elements or simply give the photograph a sense to detachment. These photographs I took in 2011 when my father was near death in the VA hospital in Lake City. He had lingered for nearly a month in and out of consciousness, never recovering his speech. He would try and communicate with us but it was most difficult. As usual, as in every event, always, I had a camera. It is second nature. I would not know how to manage if I had no camera with me. I am continually thinking in terms of light, composition, expression. My wife can be sitting before me telling me if I do not quit acting the child, get some responsibility, it is over, and my thought is, how the light falls upon the frowning.
The third photograph is of my sister, the first child, the apple of my fathers eye, the spoiled child, if you will. She just happened at the time to be working as a Hospice nurse in the Serenity Ward where my father spent his last days. The photograph is the moment of death. Before that photograph, my father had been lying silent, the breaths further and further apart. Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide in wonderment, looking out toward the window in front of him to his right, then closing them, sinking down in the bed in death. Earlier in his stay there, he had communicated that an angel was standing there by the window.
There were other photographs, but at this point, three years hence, I am too close to the scene. Perhaps further down the road I will post the entire set.