Poignant Portfolio no. 12: Troy Colby
The Fragility of Fatherhood
by Troy Colby
Hold my hand and hold your breath. I am learning as I pretend to know what I am doing. I am so tired and worry more about you than myself. I am restless in this domesticated life. I long for more for you and myself. Things seemed easy when it was only the pitter-patter of your little feet. Life can be so unkind.
I see the way the light hits your face as you cry out for warmth, I see how it hits your face and shows the lines of wisdom, through the good and the bad. We are the quiet and unspoken, yet we scream the loudest.
Rest your tired eyes. I will cover you in warmth. We will move past this and carve out our own light against the darkest skies. As the words, Are you Okay fade from our lives.
Troy was born and raised in a small rural farming community and now currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas. Through his continued passion of how photography can be used as a means of understanding the world around him. Troy started turning the camera inward on his wife, children and himself. It has become his desire to capture his family in a raw way. While gaining an understanding how this imagery will become his family album as time goes on.
Troy holds a BFA in Fine Art Photography from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and is currently working on his MFA. His work has been seen in Black and White Magazine, Lenscratch, Plates to Pixels, F-Stop, Fraction Magazine, Feature Shoot and was a 2015 Critical Mass finalist.
From the Editor
Troy Colby’s poetic meditation on fatherhood is an endearing yet disarming motif. A parent’s life experience of being both a child and an adult is not enough knowledge to cover the many nuances of raising kids. Colby captures that anxiety and joy of the parent as well as the confusion and wonder of being a child in cinematic black and white. If I’m being honest, these photographs give me butterflies in a flurry of mixed emotions. I wonder if that’s at all similar to the emotions of Colby’s kid. Or maybe the artist himself. Either way, these images are beautiful and so very human.
Thank you for the glimpse Troy Colby.
–Blue Mitchell