Absentia

 I started this project as a way to process my relationship with my father. I grew up in rural Indiana on a small farm and thought I had a very typical childhood as I grew up. My father was a good man but not very emotionally open. He was never violent or abusive to me or my mother but it always felt very hard to connect with him on many levels. He was always present without really being there, I spent my early childhood craving his attention but it seemed as if we were speaking different languages. I know beyond any doubt that my father loved me but the way in which we communicated was not conducive to an accurate understanding of the situation. I did not know much of my father’s past other than he had been in the Pacific during WWII. I grew up seeing his physical scars yet I had no idea of the mental scars that were left behind. I look back now and think if I had only known I might have understood. It wasn’t until his death that I discovered his true experience when I read a book which one chapter was his story on survivors of Japanese POW camps. He had been through hell in every sense of the word and survived beyond horrors that no one should have to see or experience. I believe this created his emotional wall that he used to protect himself from any harm. To me at the time I thought it was my fault, that I had done something that displeased him or that I just wasn’t good enough. I’ve learned over the years that this was not the case, he did not know how to be vulnerable because to do so meant death. I grew up feeling guilt for something that wasn’t my fault or my burden. These images are a cathartic exploration to the connection I have with my father. They are symbols of the remnants of a past, both his and mine. He was stationed in the San Francisco Bay Area before and after the war and had been to many of these locations. Photographing the old bunkers and installations is a way I can visit with him before his experience and a way to let go of his history as I turn his past into a beautiful reply to his history. These images are the conversation we never had the opportunity to have. It wasn’t until a year after this metaphoric conversation that I understood that the burden was never mine to bare. It has been a long journey and at times I thought it would never end, but here now with these images I can finally let go of the past that has so affected me. These images are in memory of my father, Hugh H Sims.

All images were taken on Ilford 4×5 B&W film, scanned and printed in Piezography.

The process is a part of the conversation between my father and I. The studies show the reality of the scene and are a culmination of many visits and reshoots to arrive at the proper understanding. While I know these conversations are one sided they are none the less my way of purging the past into the final images. The switch from color to black and white and from digital to film is my way of analyzing the history from different perspectives through time arriving at a resolution. They are memories that may now lie at rest allowing them to fade into the past much like the bunkers serving as a reminder but no longer an anchor.