Portraits of Saying Goodbye

In Portraits of Saying Goodbye, I use the camera as a tool in my own invented ritual to add meaning to my relationships. When I was young, about five or six, my mother would realize in a panic that I wasn’t in the house. She would find me on a neighbour’s porch, usually an old person, plying them with questions. During these excursions, I learned how to shear sheep, play the pipe organ, mix concrete, and install crown moulding. I was once given a border collie that my parents made me return. I haven’t ever grown out of that way of engaging with the world. I have realised, however, that the compulsion to ask questions and hear and tell stories is just a tool. It helps me connect with other people and connection makes me feel like a participant, not just a spectator. During the last ten years, I haven’t lived in one place for more than two. Wherever I go, I gather a family. In moments spent with these people to whom I feel connected I can’t help but feel a melancholic sense that that moment will end. I resonate with the Japanese phrase mono no aware (物の哀れ). It speaks of the awareness of the transience of things and a quiet sadness because of it. Along with that sadness, however, a celebration of the experience of which you bore witness. When I take a portrait it is like a ceremony to set aside that person, to sanctify what I value most. In the words of Anthony Kiedis, “All I want is for you to be happy and take this moment to make you my family”