A father and his grown son, holding hands. Behind them is what defines them; in front of them, the lens in all its merciless candor. Important photographs need no words.
This Digital Story is as big as life itself. Because it takes us back to the most natural of cycles and offers its piercing gaze into meaning.
“This is one of those stories that begin without you having any clear idea where they will take you. And that is exactly what draws me to it most. It turned into a far more complete exploration of the subject than I had first imagined,” says the photographer Valeriy Poshtarov.
Valeriy is the father of two sons, who are now 12 and 9. One morning, as he walks them to school, he starts thinking about how, before he knows it, the moment will come very soon when they no longer want him to hold their hands.
“It was as if I wanted to prove to myself that it doesn't have to be that way. So I decided to make a portrait of my father and my grandfather, who was 95 at the time. For me, that would be a very powerful confirmation that continuity exists, that we really are carrying a relay baton that we pass on to the next generation.”
The idea came at the height of the pandemic, when we were cut off from our elderly relatives for a long time in an effort to protect them. Valeriy had to wait a whole year to take the photograph he had in mind. But before the time came, another encounter gave him a sign that this story had to be told to the end.
“In early spring I happened to find myself in front of a house that caught my interest. I took out my camera, started composing the shot, and at that very moment two people came out. The woman was pushing the man in a wheelchair; he said something to her, she hurried back into the house and returned holding a framed portrait of a young man. She came up to me and said: ‘We had only one son, and he died eight months ago. My husband saw you with the camera and he would very much like you to take a portrait of him with his son.’ That was a sign telling me this series had to happen. That these portraits had to be made.”
These portraits really did have to be made. “I must prepare myself for the inevitable oppressive walls that will slowly rise between me and others; I must be ready to accept the slow but sure drifting away of my children, until at best only tolerance remains,” I recall these words from William Wharton's Dad.
Valeriy devoted himself to the undertaking. He took the photograph of his father and grandfather, then won funding for a project, and he hasn't stopped shooting since; he plans to keep going for many years. He has captured around 150 pairs of fathers and sons from every administrative province in Bulgaria. He keeps searching for what is shared in the relay we pass from one generation to the next.
“The photographs are far removed from the particulars of the individuals they depict. They are a composite image of relationships and of generations that pass each other by. While posing, fathers and sons hold hands for the first time in years, in decades. That act of intimacy became the real meaning; the photos are simply proof of the love between father and son that so often goes unspoken for a long time.”
You may recognize some public figures in the photographs, but apart from the first one, the photographer has chosen not to tell his subjects' stories. Even though many advise him to do so, since the story is what moves people, Valeriy believes that images without words give far more.
“I deliberately keep these stories secret. I'm glad that over time I've listened to this personal philosophy of mine and resisted the temptation to reveal more about the people themselves, because by withholding that information, the viewer is invited to create it on their own.”
Recently the project caught the attention of the LensCulture platform, which has more than a million followers. The photographer believes his undertaking falls within the genre of “participatory photography,” though it also differs from it in quite a few ways.
“My approach departs from the standard in two respects. In ‘participatory photography,’ the camera is usually handed to the participants so they can capture the life around them. In this case I keep the camera for myself, but the people I photograph step onto the stage against the backdrop of their own lives. I prompt them to stand in a place that feels somehow natural to them. People become participants; they are not just subjects.”
A large part of the challenge lies in getting two grown men to take each other's hand. To somehow reveal their vulnerability, something our culture does not encourage in the least.
“There were many awkward moments, however absolutely natural this actually is. As men, we somehow have this natural task of emancipating ourselves, of breaking free from our father's influence, of stepping out of his shadow. And the process of acceptance is the other side of it. We have to have formed ourselves enough as individuals to be able to accept our father, to take his hand calmly. It's a long road, a mutual process. Usually it's the son who first feels some kind of shyness, some discomfort. The father always takes his hand with ease, because he will always be his son.”
From the very beginning Valeriy decided he would photograph only adults, and he has had to turn down many fathers of young children.
“When children are small, it's very different; they are still part of our own identity. The two personalities don't meet as intensely as when the son has grown up. Then there is a real meeting; otherwise it's as if we are still one whole, and that is perfectly natural. And that's when you find out whether you've done a good job. The question is, how do you judge it?”
The photographer already has a few shots from neighboring countries, and his next stop is Georgia. According to Valeriy, if the project spreads to different countries, we will be able to draw purely cultural parallels, to make comparisons.
“We are shaped by the environment we grew up in, and it would be very different to see fathers and sons from various places around the world. The very setting in which I photograph people is part of the story. And this is where visual semiotics comes in. Through the means of the visible alone, and the way it is expressed, conclusions can be drawn about the history, the culture and the environment of these people.”
After so many moving encounters, what has it occurred to him is important to tell his own sons?
“This process is very dynamic, and it's tied to my own personal growth, not only as a father but also as a more balanced person who can accept someone else's opinion even when he doesn't agree with it. It very often happens that relationships between fathers and sons aren't very good because of some imposition of values or a lack of understanding on the father's part. One of my sons is now entering a more turbulent age, and there are many challenges tied to potential differences. And this is the moment when I, as a parent, try to be balanced. To accept his position and look for dialogue rather than impose my opinion one-sidedly. I think that in some way this means taking the hands of others too, not just your father's. That respect and that reciprocity are the key to relationships between people.”
And has he learned anything about his relationship with his own father?
“At one point he sent me a photo of the two of us holding hands when I was a little boy. It touched me deeply. As I arranged all these images in my head, I ended up receiving this kind of virtual gift from my father, which seemed to bring the whole perspective together again. As if the beginning could now be placed much further back, not at the moment I started photographing. It was a beautiful gesture of support, but in this case something more, a kind of validation. We all need to know that what we believe in is not merely a figment of our imagination.”
In the photographs, people look rather serious, and that is no accident. Because a smile in a photo, as the photographer reminds us, is often a mask that hides our true face.
“I stick to the principle of broader representativeness. For me it has always been essential to let people be themselves. To stand beside their father or son with their own image, the way they see themselves. I'm not in the business of entertainment. I don't make people suppress their emotions; rather, I bring them back to the idea. To turn toward the other side, toward their father or son, toward the fact that they are holding hands, that the whole memory of their family line and the whole future pass through their hands. There is a very beautiful thought by Proust: ‘If you chase only beautiful landscapes, you will end up without landscapes and without breath.’ Life, in its simple unpretentiousness, holds everything that we are.”
We part ways with the photographer, and the next morning I too walk my boys to their kindergartens. I hold their hands, somehow more tightly than usual. Please, don't rush. There's time, you'll take the baton, and everything else happens between these moments of handing it over…
More photos from Fathers and Sons are here.
