“The photographs turned into our departure ritual; pack suitcases into the car, do hugs and kisses, wave to each other, drive away.”

Deanna Dikeman's touching photo book tells a story of family, intimacy, goodbyes and the melancholy of time passing. For twenty-seven years, Dikeman photographed her parents waving goodbye.

When she took the  first photograph in 1991 she didn’t think of it as a project just to preserve the moment, but over the years it has become a ritual to capture the moment of farewell. Documenting might make leaving easier, as it is unsure when a farewell will be the last. The book chronicles the visits, the changing seasons, the years passing by and the aging of the parents.

In 2009, Dikeman's father passed away, but his mother continued to say goodbye for another eight years, last year already from the nursing home. The last image in the series was taken in 2017 of the empty driveway after the funeral of the photographer's mother. Dikeman's personal and intimate work not only captures the melancholy of time passing, but also gives us insight into intimate moments of a family that is easy to connect with, as it evokes emotions and memories familiar to all of us.

Leaving and Waving was nominated for a Mack First Book Award in 2020 and shortlisted for the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards in 2021. The book and its exhibition can be viewed free of charge in the PaperLab gallery.