Photo Narrative - Baba

A quick note...Some of you may be wondering why these photo narratives are posted in both the 'Images' section as well as the 'Journal' section. The reason for this is simply that the 'Journal' section entries allow me to display the series as a slideshow, which is the way they were originally meant to be viewed. 

My inspiration for venturing into this style of photography is thanks completely to Duane Michals, an iconic American photographer that almost single-handedly revived and reinvented the genre of photo narratives. For anyone interested in this style of photography, I strongly recommend Jonathan Weinberg's analysis of Michals' most famous narrative, Things are Queer. 

About this series...The central subject is the loss of my grandfather. I was in America when it happened and suffered another tragedy right around the same time in later part of 2003. At the time, I simply didn't have the emotional strength or the time to grieve for him while dealing with the other things that were happening around me, not to mention that I was physically disconnected from the rest of my family by thousands of miles. 

When I returned home for a vacation, everyone had moved on. I wanted to grieve but didn't know how, and didn't want to impose on my family either, all of whom had moved on in their own ways. So I returned to America, with a rather large piece of carry-on emotional baggage, unsure of how to proceed. As is the case with college life, the daily hustle and bustle took precedence, and any thoughts of coming to terms with this event were sidelined.

Finally, almost a year later, in 2004, I created this series to honor his memory. The series is intentionally minimalist and hazy, attempting to replicate the nature of the thought/expression/guilt associated with loss, as well as the fact that he most often comes to me in my dreams.The photograph that I used is worth mentioning in it's own right as it has a fairly unique quality; no matter where you are sitting in a given room where it hangs, it looks like 'Baba' is looking directly at you. In this sense, the point of the series is fairly simple: rather than trying to suppress the gaze of the photograph and be burdened by the loss, I simply embraced it and chose to remember the fond memories that I had of my grandfather every time I looked at it. Specifically, I chose to remind myself that my grandfather lives on in me, and that means that so long as I am alive, a part of him will always be there, looking straight at me.