Father is a new photography project and publication by Glasgow based photographer Eoin Carey. It is made with the participation of local fathers and focuses on the tender and tired routines of everyday fatherhood.
The project shows fathers with their children in natural, domestic settings and captures the intimacy, stress, play and poetry of parenthood. It playfully looks at parenting from the point of view of fathers and seeks to counter the perceived stereotypes that still remain of fathers being either heroes, incompetent or simply absent, and shows the significance of a father's role in their children's lives.
The project is inspired by Eoin’s own experience of early parenthood as a single dad. Witnessing so many fleeting moments of chaos and beauty but without a free hand to document them he wished that another set of eyes could have captured his experience. He realised how much of parenthood goes undocumented apart from the smiles and the selfies, and how valuable it is for fathers and families to have a record of the ordinary, routine moments of parenthood and recognice the beauty in the private, imperfect, downright chaotic moments in the labour and love that is caring for a child.
Although parenthood is a universal experience, photographic or artistic projects around parenthood commonly deal with a maternal experience, which is more nuanced and developed both as a concept and a role. Father hopes to balance that and has been published as a limited edition book.
View images from the project here