Last week, while surfing the internet, a particular story grabbed my attention. The New York Times featured a piece by Susan Minot, Forty Portraits in Forty Years. Nicolas Nixon took pictures of his wife and her three sisters every year for the past forty years. The sisters, known only as Heather, Mimi, Bebe and Laurie posed in the same order every year. What emerges out of this series is more than a haphazard photograph of four women; instead you begin to see glimpses of the individual and the collective. As each year passed, Nixon noted that the sisters seemed more together and united. When these photographs are viewed as a collective, Minot noted that the audience reacted in such a visceral way, openly weeping over a set of sisters that they did not know personally. Nixon intended to keep his wife and her sisters cloaked in privacy. They are presented with the same air of mystery that surrounds Mona Lisa’s smile.
Read the rest of this essay on The First Day.
Image: Nokia Lumia 1020 – Camera of the Day – Retina Reflex IV by TempusVolat via Flickr.