I photographed my first death at 17.
It was my great-grandmother’s funeral, and something inside me said it was an important moment to document. But it wasn’t until 2018—19 years later, when my father died—when I began to devote part of myself as a documentary photographer to the subject of death and dying.
My dad was already gone by the time I got to his hospital room. The staff informed us that we had to leave soon because they needed the room. I’m stubborn, and I held my ground. I wanted to stay with Dad for a bit, and I did. In the days that followed, the funeral home advertised its services: Products for sale! Mementos! Why, I thought, do some people react to death in such a disconnected way? We don’t treat birth that way, do we?…