I chose to use my dad as the subject of my caretaker studies for several reasons. My father has always been a very prominent figure in my life. Although he was very strict when I was younger, a lot of my personality and interests take after his. My dad is sometimes blunt and unreasonable, but he has never ceased to support me in all that I do.

I chose the first pose to be my dad’s realistic pose because it was something he used to do after he broke his collar bone earlier in the year. He would sit on the couch relaxed and watching TV, but his right hand would be massaging his collar bone, and even after it had already healed, he kept touching it out of habit. Although he doesn’t do it as often, there are still times that I find my dad in this same pose, hence I chose it to represent him in this study. I think this pose represents my dad’s calmer, more relaxed side. He is very opinionated and unafraid to speak his mind, but he also knows how to wind down and hold back when he knows it’s not the right time to speak out.

The second, abstract pose represents my dad’s strictness. For a long time, up until about my junior year of high school, my dad kept a very short leash on my social life. And during that time of my life, there were many times I felt very suffocated. I wanted to speak my mind and reason that he was not being fair, but could never find the courage to do so until I reached the third year of high school. This no longer really applies now that I am in college, but the way my father raised me has had a very large, if not the largest impact on who I am today.