Belief

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Being There

Image | Posted on 3 Days Ago by devtank

Last coherent conversation with my Father

I never lived in this apartment, apart from one month in 2015 where I came back to Ireland with the intention of trying to get to know him again and to remind myself of who he was and where I came from.

Dublin, My father had fallen about 6 months previously and damaged some bones. He was checked on by a friend who determined quite rightly, that he was in trouble. Between my Sister and my oldest brother, John, and their friends that were still living in Ireland, helped get him situated in a new place.
In the meantime, he had been hospitalized and then sent to ‘Our Lady’s Manor’ which is a care home administered by an order of nuns. This is literally moments after I saw him for the first time in 3 years. I was gutted when I saw him, so physically diminished, yet bright and coherent despite the crumbling infrastructure.

Dublin,. My oldest brother, John, dealing with immediate arrangements for Dad, a Taxi, and his job back in the UK.

Waiting by the elevator at Our lady’s Manor care home. My thoughts during this time were to apply the same psychology through my camera that would help determine the best images to get in the moment. As I was looking at my father, I could see his demeanour, indicating that he wasn’t really sure about what was going on in that moment. The following image carries on this psychology and is manifested on my brother, as he amply reflects my own thoughts in that moment.

Dublin,. In the tiny elevator at Our lady’s Manor care home.
It became clear that it was very difficult for me to figure out which emotion was calling me the most. I made the picture to solidify the moment.

I remember my dad talking about a film that he said was profound; “Being There” with Peter Sellers. The sentiment of this film is reflected in these images.

Dublin,. This is my brother, John, saying goodbye for now to our dad. Me giving him that hug, would look just the same as this, and it would be the following day. The last time I would talk with him.

Dublin,. A view, one that I’d seen many times before, but from another point.
My father spilt most of his life into this area, everyone knew him, he was a hand, act or part in this area for 88 years.

I remember my dad talking about a film that he said was profound; “Being There” with Peter Sellers. The sentiment of this film is reflected in these images.

I have vague memories of being a child holding his big warm hand, and he would turn back to me like this, and say something.

Dublin,. I literally got off the plane got in a taxi and came straight out to see him at the Manor. The trip back to my friend’s house where I was staying, was a real-time tableaux of images from the window of the train, segments of my past life in Ireland, chunks of memory, good and bad times, little vignettes of thought and memory synchronized and dispatched with the rhythm of the tracks.

I remember once my dad talking about a film that he said was profound; “Being There” with Peter Sellers. The sentiment of this film is reflected in these images.

The last look.
I had a deadline, my part in a charade. I got one day with my father.
The window frame tells me that I have no control, I include it in the frame, to convey a sense of constraint. Other things going on outside the window, are reinforcements on this concept.

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Observations from a Small City on the Edge of a Crumbling Tectonic Economy..

Image | Posted on November 21, 2015 by devtank

I’ve lived in Seattle since November 25th 2004, and in that time I have seen some slow changes, lost touch with a lot of people who moved on, disappeared left town etc. It’s really not until 2013 that the physical changes happened in the city that I could start to think I was living in a dynamic place.

I came to the US with an expectations of grandeur.

I was really surprised when I got to New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and DC and was hit in the face with the fact that these were aging cities, and the sense that the people living there, really didn’t have much actual control or say over anything that went on, because democracy got in the way. Id assumed the US was bright shiny and new.
As a European, I had always grown up with places that were maintained and there was a real sense of local pride and everyone was involved in it.

Over the years and traveling around, I’ve seen enough of it to tell me that this country is definitely a continent in decline. A place strangled by conservative values, and disregard for everything except money.

The US is definitely not a place I want to grow old in, and yet, I don’t know where else there is now that hasn’t adopted the same capitalistic values, and with that the utterly destructive nature of that which is held in high regard: individualism.

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the legacy

Quote | Posted on May 25, 2015 by devtank

“…the act of thinking thoroughly through a scene and preempting a moment to capture it, comes with experience. The experience shows when is the right moment to take the shot. Because the shot is a legacy of that decision…”

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Dublin

Image | Posted on May 17, 2015 by devtank

May 22, sees the first referendum for marriage equality in Ireland. While most of the positivity towards it shows in the main cities of Cork and Dublin, opinion is divided in the regional cities and towns.

My Aunt Eileen and my father discuss family roots. Skerries north Co. Dublin, Ireland.

North Co. Dublin from the Dublin to Dundalk train.

Generation gaps prevail, Dublin City, Ireland. While Ireland awakens from stern austerity measures put in place by preceding governments the generation gaps appear as many of the immigrants from ireland came back in the mid 2000’s left again during the economic downturn, the economic migrants, many from former eastern bloc states the up the slack.

The dog is part of the family.

Im having a Latte, what would you like?

Retake on an old classic.

“They come down from the Pheno” Referring to the Phoenix Park, at one stage Europe’s largest city park. Seagulls plane on the strong winds which funnel up the river Liffey. Dan Kavanagh stands on the Millennium Footbridge linking Temple Bar to Ormond Quay, commanding a flock of majestic gulls, with chunks of biscuit, like a scene from Irish mythology.