Musing: Scars

Over the last three days I have taken some portraits of my Dad.  I’m not entirely sure of my reasons why, maybe because he was ill recently and I realised I had never photographed him.  I had forgotten about the scar on his neck from an operation he had a few years back.  I made sure it was in shot.

Scars have a  story to tell.  It is a reminder that we are not invincible.  This skin and bones are not unbreakable.

Photographer Pedro Meyer has a few thoughts…

“Are scars beautiful? That depends on the beholder doesn’t it. Scars invoke the memory of difficult moments. One could make the argument that society tries to avoid scars. In the first world a lot of women (and now men also) try to keep the scars of time away through the use of cosmetics and or surgery suggesting that they – the wrinkles – reveal age and ought to be something to vanish. However men are more willing to offer their scars as proof of having survived under duress.  Remember scars are the evidence of life. There are other scars however that are not external.”

– Pedro Meyer.  August 1998