Like many baby boomers, Mark Hamasaki became a caretaker for his aging parents.

Though his mother, Setsu Nao Hamasaki, died last summer, Mark’s father, Richard N. Hamasaki, 92, was planning to attend Friday’s opening of a new photo exhibition at Gallery ‘Iolani at Windward Community College, where Mark teaches art.

The exhibit, “Conjoined,” encompasses a year’s work that “pays tribute to my folks” with seven photo-based pieces. The largest, “Mom (7/15/2010),” an assemblage that resembles a contact sheet, is composed of copies of three portraits of his mother, printed on different papers and colored with different tones.

“It brings up the question of what exactly is a portrait,” he said. “With this large piece, I say not just one can represent a life. The total of 72 pictures offers up three different moods of her.

“Because she was an artist herself, she was a big influence on me, and my brother and sister also developed an interest in the arts.”

As for Hamasaki’s father, he was born in Paauilo on the Hamakua coast of Hawaii island. His family later moved to Oahu, specifically the Kaimuki area, where they ran a chicken farm business.

“But it was my grandfather’s intention to go back to Japan, and what had happened was that my dad, being the youngest, did in fact go back with him and his wife with the intention of taking care of them as they got older.

“But when war broke out, Dad was at a draftable age, and would’ve gone into the Japa­nese army to be deployed to Manchuria. It was then that his mom insisted he go back to the U.S., which he did when he was around 19.”

Richard Hamasaki served instead in the 100th Infantry Battalion. He was wounded in battle while in Italy and transferred to the Military Intelligence Service language school in Minnesota.

It was there that he met his future wife, Setsu, a recruited volunteer from the Topaz relocation camp in Utah, where she and her family were interned. Hamasaki stayed in the military through the Korean War and retired as a major in 1961. He became a civilian adviser for the Central Intelligence Agency, traveling to such Asian-Pacific areas as Vietnam, Thailand and Japan.

“The whole thing with the war,” said Mark Hama­saki, “sure, those nisei who served in the Army were considered heroes, but when you really look at it, it was just a small part of my father’s life, three-four years. Sure, it was important, but does that define his whole life?”

A photo collage representing his father includes photos of the two Silver Stars and a bronze medal he received.

The homage to his folks is an intimate one, raising issues about life and aging, and originally was to include separate nude portraits of them. Hama­saki’s mother initially agreed to pose but died beforehand. Hama­saki broached the subject with his father over dinner, expecting him to say no, but he agreed to it.

“When my mom died, that was a big thing. It certainly brought more significance and meaning to the exhibition.”