On May 14th, 2007, I came home from school like any other student in my first grade class. However, a brown van pulled up in front of our house and a very well dressed group of soldiers made their way towards our front door. Before they could reach the steps, our next door neighbor was inside telling my sister and me to grab our stuff and that we were going to play over at her house. Hours later, we were welcomed home in a way unfortunately we will never forget. While sitting at the end of our living room couch, I watched as my sobbing mother tried to explain to my four year old sister and myself that our father was not coming home. Being six years old and not knowing how to process this information, I simply did the one thing I knew how to do. I turned to my homework folder, opened it, and just stared at it. The weight of the news began to swallow me and the last thing I remember about that day is asking my mother, “Can I do my homework later?”

Throughout the following years, I only heard incredible stories about my dad and how remarkable it is that I have his eyes. As time went on, what little memory I had of my dad began to slip away and is now replaced by photos in old family scrapbooks. Recently, I’ve made small discoveries in my day to day life that remind me that my father’s legacy is carried through me. I have started to collect his belongings along with items that remind me of him in order to “find” the person he was and in my heart, the person he will always to be.

Being loosely based off of hidden mother photographs from the 19th century, Hidden Father is an effort to capture my father’s influence on my life while he is no longer physically present in this world. Through these large format “self-portraits,” I attempt to document the ways, both subtle and right on the nose, in which my father and his legacy remains present my life. This project is merely a representation of the continuous healing of a wound that is now 15 years deep. Without further ado, I present to you my Hidden Father.

DEDICATED TO THE LOVING MEMORY OF MAJ. LARRY J. BAUGUESS JR.

We love and miss you dearly.