My Mother, Elsewhere

Through the eye of the camera, I found a way to stay close to her - hands, everyday rituals, quiet traces of a life. This practice has healed something between us and helped me understand our relationship in ways I hadn't before.

I have been photographing my mother in the space between presence and distance.

She is still here - her gestures, her voice, her familiar ways of moving through the world - yet she is also somewhere beyond my reach. A place I can sense, but cannot enter.

We now inhabit two realities: hers, becoming increasingly private and inward; mine, still searching for moments of connection. Photography has become my way of staying close. A way of looking longer, listening more carefully, and meeting her where she is.

I photograph the quiet traces of a life: her hands, the objects she keeps close, the rituals that remain. A wedding ring worn for decades. A bed made each morning. A familiar path walked with the dog. Ordinary gestures that carry the weight of memory, even when memory itself begins to change.

Nothing is staged. These images are not an attempt to document disappearance, but to remain present. They exist between holding on and letting go - between what I remember and what I can still encounter.

There are moments when she looks at me and the distance briefly dissolves. For a second, the two worlds meet. I recognize my mother, and she recognizes me.

This work is a daughter’s attempt to follow someone she loves into a place she cannot fully reach to witness what remains, to honour what is changing, and to keep searching for connection, image by image.