Dad Pete Opa

Tim lectures in photography at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, New Zealand. He is the director and administrator of Place in Time: The Christchurch Documentary Project.

It was always how he signed off; shorthand for Dad, Pete, Opa. Tim J. Veling would soon learn his father had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer with an estimated three months to live. The rug was suddenly pulled out from under his feet.

D,P,O is a record of those last, precious months. The photographs are testament to not only the grief that father and son worked through together, but more importantly the love and admiration they shared; an account of the inevitable slowing of one life set to a backdrop of a new life and relationships thriving. Intensely moving in its unflinching intimacy and honesty, D,P,O reminds us that while death comes to us all, we must live in the present and treasure deeply the company of people we hold dear. For within those that remain, love and life endure.