Tristan Jones
Lost Opportunities, 2021
It’s 2 years since we lost mum to cancer. I’m ok now, when thinking back to the awful experience we all endured, as she suffered in her last moments.
My mum was a bit of an enigma. She wouldn’t let people photograph her, we’re from the era that didn’t have the internet and smartphones to snap and record our daily lives. There are barely any images of her in existence.
Every birthday and Mother’s Day I would buy mum flowers. She did a floristry course many years ago, so loved receiving them. This is one of her arrangements.
This is also the last time I had an opportunity to photograph her, in a rush, for a new DVLA photo, looking a bit hot and bothered.
I’ve processed these images as a diptych and used an oval vignette to represent the form of a keepsake, together they could sit in a locket. They’re deliberately faded to provide distance and represent the fading memories and pain. Exhibiting these images places mum in a space she never got to occupy.
As we honour Women’s History Month, this my is celebration of motherhood; a reminder that we all came from a mum, whom no matter how famous, infamous, or ordinary, brought us into this world.
Birthday Flowers
Lost Opportunities