my parents and me
Mr Timmy
No matter how different we are (or want to believe we are) from them, when we look at our parents we cannot help but see some version of our future—and when they look at us they gaze upon some version of their past. Yet our childhoods also reside in their faces, and all their hopes in ours. We are twice each others’ time machines: poignant portals to what once was and what will be.
This is a portrait of the photographer’s parents, and yet look at the title he has given it; surely not accidentally, and not because he appears, in miniature, on the mantelpiece. When we seek to know our parents we also befriend ourselves. Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. Not even with our lovers are we so intertwined.
In a way this photograph is saturated with a sense of stillness and nostalgia—the collective weight of all these artifacts of family history seeming almost to soften and fade the quality of light in the room. But in a very real sense it is also an image of deep transformation: past, present, and future dancing over the piano keys no one else plays.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, meerasethi and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
