Everything I learned about my father has been eclipsed by his death. Using his photographic archive taken in Japan between 1972-1974, I reconsider him to find new connections.

In his photographs, I find what I could not recall: ordinary moments from our family’s life.

Aged six, my father disappeared from my life. My mother explained what happened, but I was too young to understand. If he was mentioned, I would be rendered unable to speak and would have to leave the room. Many years later, I found out from school friends that my father had ended his life.

I have one memory of my father from my childhood. I am visiting him in hospital and he is holding my hand. An angry nurse is telling him off. My father is a small boy, and I am holding his hand.

After my father died, my mother rebuilt her life. My brother went to a boarding school and I lost myself in friends.

When I reached sixteen we moved away from my hometown. I left everything I loved. My world fell apart. In the ashes, I found my mother.

She became the author of my father in my mind's eye. Grateful for her honesty, I was heartbroken by stories from his troubled life.

In the years preceding my father’s death, we moved as a family to Japan.

If his moorings were adrift, my father looked away from this. He turned towards music, art and culture: invigorated by Japan.

I discovered a man very different from the one I had put together from stories. His camera showed what captivated him...not what he could not bear.

And then by chance, I stumble across something. Something that I did not notice when my father’s Super 8 films were projected onto a wall…something I found in the stillness of its single frames.