Natural Causes
I have been photographing various members of my family over the years, with a primary focus on my twin nieces. Over the course of the last seven years, I have documented the twins in their everyday events; everything from the fanciful to the mundane.
Recently my mother had a serious health scare and with it came the sudden reality of her age and vulnerability. A rush of emotions took over and unexpectedly the regret I felt for not having documented my father before his death reemerged. This became my motivation to photograph my mother and ignited a crusade to preserve her and my memories of her.
Experiencing the death of a parent, whether untimely or imminent is never easy. It creates an urgency to maintain and preserve the relationships with the living. The details of our memories inevitably fade with time, and the fear of possibly losing the recollection of a loved one is what inspired this act of conservation.
Comparing the photographs of my nieces with those of my mother I see interesting parallels. They are both about time. In the photographs of my nieces there is an expected abundance of time; time to witness their physical changes. Time is passing, and plays a very different role in the photographs of my mother. These images are authentic, beautiful and at times sad; they are a continuous reminder that time is fleeting, and compel us to take a moment to look back.
