I took a blog break last week to spend time with my dad. He was visiting New York, New Jersey and Toronto from Manila. I asked my sister Caroline to take some portraits of him. It had been a while since either one of us took proper portraits of him. I was excited about what she would come up with given all the recent family photo restorations that I've been working on as well as conversations about family history.
During his visit to Toronto, my sisters took my dad to Mankind – a spa and barbershop just for men. I must mention that my dad is no stranger to spa treatments. He's what we might refer to nowadays as "metrosexual." Only I remember him getting facials back in the late 70s and 80s – long before the term was coined and before I really understood what facials were all about. All I knew is it was a form of grooming for the face.
I really love this portrait Caroline took. It was shot exclusively with natural light (which is totally amazing to me). My dad looks like he's part of the mob here (yet again!). The photo looks very cinematic. He looks quite intimidating and sombre here. Ironically, he's usually more of a jokester but you'd never know it looking at this photo.