dad


  • Photographer
    morganna magee
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    none
  • Technical Info
    silver gelatin print

My father passed away from complications of lung cancer May 11th 2010. He was 64 years old. I shot this series with the intention of creating a series on cancer, but the work evolved into a personal tribute to my father and our relationship

Story

My father has been sick since I was a child. Though never close when I was little when my parents divorced I was aged 14, my brother and myself became the next of kin on the hospital forms. Over the past 9 years, we have taken him too and from hospitals, doctors appointments, specialists. In late 2009 he was diagnosed with throat cancer, and this time I decided to take my camera along to document the journey for both him and myself. I believe that by documenting his treatment I was able to see him in a different light, more as the viewer of a series and less as a frustrated carer, the more photos I took, the more I began to feel a true sense of empathy with my father. .

So often as a photographer we are concerned with how our subject is feeling. We try to make them feel comfortable but are mindful of not overstepping the mark. By photographing something so intimate, I became almost like a subject. There were times I could not photograph, not because it would upset my father, but rather because it would upset me. That is why I avoided photographing this as a true photo essay, rather I focused on portraits- this series is very much about my father not cancer. This series is my photographic therapy.

My father passed away from complications of lung cancer May 11th 2010. He was 64 years old.

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