Mother and Father

CHOOSE BETWEEN AN UNSIGNED 2022 REPRINT OR A SIGNED FIRST EDITION OR AN UNSIGNED FIRST EDITION

The 2022 reprint is brand new. In shrinkwrap.

Please note the first edition (2014) is signed by Paddy Summerfield to title page and is in fine condition. no markings.

The unsigned first edition is also in fine condition. Some very slight toning to extremities of pages, no other markings.

About Mother and Father

This book is a moving journal of the final years of a sixty-year marriage. For ten years, from 1997 to 2007 Paddy Summerfield photographed his parents, reflecting on the bond between them, which even the effects of Alzheimers could not break. They become symbols in a drama of balance and tension, which is both domestic and epic. As he says: "I recorded my mother's loss of the world, my father's loss of his wife and, eventually, my loss of them both." The images are primarily taken in their garden, though the central section shows holiday visits to the Welsh coast, where the raven, a Celtic symbol of death, frequently appears alongside their world.

Finally, the once cultivated garden becomes a neglected wilderness, in the absence of the two people who spent long days there, who cared for it, and for each other. These thoughtful, often melancholy, images form a personal piece which is simultaneously universal. "My father works the garden, tends the land, and cares for my mother, who is trapped in her illness. And here I am, photographing them, from the house windows and in the garden. I photograph them through the seasons, time and time again; there is a mystery and melancholy in these distant figures." - Paddy Summerfield “Love, friendship, loss” Corinna Koch “These are among the most deeply moving pictures I have seen.” Gerry Badger