“Summertime” by Dani Alvarez Cañellas
With Father’s Day this coming Sunday, I felt it apropos to again share a few photographs that reflected on fatherhood (here’s last year’s post). I mean, us dads are generally overlooked for most of the year and you’ll rarely see any commercials celebrating fatherhood (mothers get all the credit, yes?) so it’s the one day where we get just a bit of attention. We’ll take it. Oh, and we’ll also take a beer, a bacon cheeseburger off the grill, the TV remote and a little peace and quiet (those are the types of commercials us dads get).
Scholars believe that the origin of Father’s Day can be traced to the ruins of Babylon. Apparently, a young boy called Elmesu carved a Father’s Day message on a card made out of clay nearly 4,000 years ago. Elmesu wished his Babylonian father good health and a long life. Though there is no record of what happened to Elmesu and his father, the tradition of celebrating Father’s Day remained in several countries all over the world.
As for Father’s Day here in the US, in 1910, a Father’s Day celebration was held in Spokane, Washington, at the YMCA by Sonora Smart Dodd for her father, a Civil War veteran named William Jackson Smart. She told her pastor that fathers should have a holiday honoring them just like mothers did (the first Mother’s Day, celebrated in 45 states, had been established the year before). Although she initially suggested June 5, her father’s birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June and on June 19, 1910, Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday (President Woodrow Wilson approved a resolution that made the second Sunday in May a national holiday in honor of “that tender, gentle army, the mothers of America” back in 1914 so they were really in no hurry to give us dads our own day, were they?). Today, economists estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on Father’s Day gifts. So like most holidays, it comes down to good ol’ commercialism. Well, these photographs tell a different story – enjoy…and happy Father’s Day!
“Father and Daughter” by Adde Adesokan
“Father and Son” by Massimo ZAMPETTI
“Father” by Hegel Jorge
“Grandpa” by Conor Ogle
After losing his wife in an emergency C-section, Chris Picco holds his dying and severely premature son…
“Banter, bonding on the beach” by Shikhar Sharma
From the “Father Figure” series of photographs from Zun Lee (also photo at top)
“Father of the Bride” by Kacy Jahanbini
“Father and Son” by Steve Clee
“Father and Daughter” by Sophia Eng
“The Lost Star” by Mohammad Moniruzzaman
“Father and Son” by Abdulaziz Jared
“Innocence Unplugged III” by Kunal Khurana
“Wind” by Adrian Sommeling
Here’s me and my girl exploring The Abandoned Train in Miami. She makes it Father’s Day every day…
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1 comment
This is awesome hombre.