PARALLEL TRACKS

By MICHAEL PERKINS

I’VE SPOKEN IN THESE PAGES BEFORE about the obligation and/or honor of photographically chronicling my ninety-five-year-old father’s last years, of being torn between wanting to create an honest, unvarnished record of his gentle but inevitable decline, and feeling duty-bound to also make the most reverent images of him possible for a family that will never really be ready to say goodbye to him.

It’s one massive juggling job, much of it done with a very solid lump in my throat. It’s chronicling a single human life along parallel tracks with dual versions of itself.

As a photographer himself, Dad raised me to be as visually alert and as honest as possible. He taught me that there is no such thing, for example as a “line” in nature, that what we call that thing is actually just a difference in the kind of light that meets two adjoining surfaces. That interpretation means respecting what you see but also extracting what’s not readily visible as well. Were he still able to see well enough to make pictures himself, I’d like to hope that he would support a version of him like the one seen above. I didn’t seek his permission. I had him in most cases totally to myself, and quietly, candidly made the images I felt needed to be made, but of two minds.

The second “mind” regards the way we would all prefer to think of him as his candle flickers. It’s taking the measure of the same face, maybe even on the same day, but with the benefit of a fresh shower and sunshine instead of cold overcast and emotional exhaustion. It’s as close to the difference between day and night as photographs can be. Both have their truth. Both have their special place in the heart.

Not every one will agree with both of these series of photos. Either they will regard one as too cruel, or they will see the other as too candy-coated. Maybe some would reject both. But if Dad taught me anything at all, he taught me to make something as well as you can. Well enough that you are proud to put your name to it at the bottom, to, in fact, testify, if you will, that you did it, you own it, you believe it. I hope I learned the lesson well enough for at least that.