Love for your Dad

Why am I sharing a photo of my dad?

Because this is one of the very few and very bad photos I have of my beloved father.

How I wish there were some more photos of he and I together.

He died when he was 53 and because my family were never big picture takers and we never once had professional photos done, there are no photos of him, where we can see him very clearly.

I sit here, as an adult wishing that I had a few photos of him and I, when I was a child (there are none), a teenager (there are a couple) and an adult (there are a few), but they are mostly bad quality.

So often, as photographers, we meet people who tell us that the photos we take, are some of the first quality shots that they have of them and their children, or partner, husband or wife.

I can not emphasise the importance of this type of image enough. These are the pictures that help us to remember our loved ones and to be in their memorial space for a short moment.

Does this actual photo make me sad? No, because I remember his humour and his laughter and the endless cups of tea. What makes me sad is that it is unclear and that there are so few of him and hardly any of us together.

It makes one realise that memories are hugely valuable and give us a deep anchor point for the rest of our lives. It is this that we take forward into how we bring up our own children and how we look after our grandchildren too.....

Father's Day is on the 21st of June, the weekend after this....please remember your dads, love your dads, share photos of your dads and make sure that your children have photos of them and their dads, as the opportunities come and go at an alarming rate.

This is a time for celebration of Fatherhood as dads are a special bunch........