All Quiet on the home front

  • Dates
    2005 - 2017
  • Author
  • Topics Daily Life, Landscape
  • Location United Kingdom, United Kingdom

All Quiet on the Home Front tells the visual story of how I became a father in the landscapes around my home in Bath, and how my daughter became herself.

I never really knew who I was.

Then my daughter was born.

And I became a father.

And that is what I became.

All Quiet on the Home Front tells the story of how I learnt how to be a father. It shows how the initial domestic claustrophobia of taking care of my daughter, Isabel, in the confines of our flat was overcome through nature; by getting out of the house, by taking Isabel on walks in the fields and the woods surrounding our home in Bath. This is the story of how we came together in that landscape, of how these landscapes crystallised our relationship.

It’s also the story of the fears that came about because of being a father, the anxiety and doubt invaded my ideas of who I was. I lost myself when Isabel was born, before slowly regaining and redefining myself as she got older till finally, when Isabel became her own person, there was a new distance between us and a new person for me to become.

So it’s optimistic. It’s life affirming. It’s idealistic. It’s about mapping yourself in your natural surroundings and finding yourself reflected in the world around you. That’s what happened with Isabel and that’s what happened with me. I became the landscapes. It’s a portrait of my daughter, it’s a portrait of the landscapes we inhabit, and most of all it’s a self-portrait of my life as a father of a child, a life that has almost ended as that child has turned into a person with her own mind, her own identity, her own self.

© Colin Pantall - I never really knew who I was.Then my daughter was born.And I became a father.And that is what I became
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I never really knew who I was. Then my daughter was born. And I became a father. And that is what I became

© Colin Pantall - Image from the All Quiet on the home front photography project
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The flat were we lived had its own topography. The places Isabel could climb or jump from. It was a forest of the imagination.

© Colin Pantall - Image from the All Quiet on the home front photography project
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To get out of the house, I walked with Isabel in the hills and fields around our home. Wondering how to become the father I wanted to be.

© Colin Pantall - I always was morbid but whenIsabel was born the morbidityhit new levels.
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I always was morbid but when Isabel was born the morbidity hit new levels.

© Colin Pantall - Image from the All Quiet on the home front photography project
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One day, we were walking on top of the ridge above Rhossili Bay. Suddenly Isabel span around and shouted: ‘‘This is who I am. This is me!’’

© Colin Pantall - Image from the All Quiet on the home front photography project
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I got to the point where I knew who I was as a father. We had a shared way of being, a shared way of seeing. It didn’t last long.

© Colin Pantall - She became herself. I'm still waiting.
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She became herself. I'm still waiting.

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