/19 Australia

Jackson Eaton

Better half

This is a history of love. The photographs are about beautiful memories and missing something that is lost. They are about the beauty of loss and the beauty of having. They are past and present and future running together. They are also about a son’s relationship with his father.

These photographs depict the stories of a father and son who travelled to South Korea at about the same time. Many experiences were shared and both lived the lives of strangers in a strange land. Along the way both of them found love in that strange land. One love came to an end. The other has endured.

I don’t know what to say because I’ve never seen the half of it before. I hope it’s a better half.

There are two stories here. One is from a time when I lived in South Korea, living with and not living with a Korean woman I met there. In the end she broke my heart, but of course it’s a more complicated story than that. The photographs of us were taken between 2007 and 2009 in Korea, England and Australia. Meanwhile, my parents separated and my father came to live in Korea too. He stayed there longer than I did and when he returned to Australia he announced he wasn’t coming back alone. He had a met a woman there, and they were married in Perth a year later. These photographs were taken in Australia over the summer of 2012-2013.

jacksoneaton.com