Variations On a Theme: My Family, My Self

Self-indulgence may be out of control, thanks in part to technology. The Web is  flooded with All-About-Me personal blogs and snapshots that in pre-Flickr days would have remained hidden in shoe boxes. But where there's so much dross, there are bound to be a few gems, and here we present some notable examples of photographers turning their cameras on their own families to explore self-identity in compelling ways.  What elevates these projects is not just the intimacy between photographer and subject, but the way that details, gestures and expressions are captured to reveal universal truths about our common humanity. There are many more good examples than we're able to show here, but we include links to several others at the bottom of this post, and welcome readers to add their own links to the comments section.

Martine Fougeron, Tête-à-Tête:

Katrina d'Autremont, Si Dios Quiere:

Erica Leone, Inheritance:

Justine Reyes, Home, Away From Home:

Michi Jigarjian, Van a Bailar:

Pascal Shirley, Sofia:

See also:
Phillip Toledano, Days With My Father
Rod Morata, Parents
Matt Austin, Wake

Comments

[rob]

“Y’know, I grew up in a different generation. I grew up after World War II, and boys did different things in those days. You went camping. You went hunting. You boxed. And the image of a writer, to someone starting off in those days was not some schmuck who went to graduate school. It was Jack London, Nelson Algren, Ernest Hemingway. Especially coming from Chicago–a writer was a knock-around guy. Someone who got a job as a reporter or drove a cab. I think the reason there are a lot of novels about How Mean My Mother Was to Me and all that shit is because the writers may have learned something called ‘technique,’ but they’ve neglected to have a life. What the fuck are they gonna write about?”

–David Mamet

[Jase]

David,
I was teenager in the 80's and I did all of the same things you did in the post war years. I think you are generalizing too much. Yes there are lots people writing with technique but there are also many who have life experience. It's always the previous generation that says "we had it harder than you" or "you've got it easy" or "in my day..." and it always will be.

JASE

PS: I'm a photographer not a writer.

[James Trory]

Jase, it's not about life being harder. Mamet is making the point that back in his day, writers would hit the streets and actually experience unique things first hand by putting themselves in interesting or odd circumstances, for the purpose of then writing about it. Nowadays a lot of writers do indeed draw on their family experience, partly because they don't actively seek other experiences to then write about. It seems as though most writers with family experiences to share are sharing the same ones as everyone else. "My dad left us", "my mom was an alcoholic", "I was a drug addict" blah blah etc etc. There are only a few writers who have successfully made this kind of work truly compelling, David Sedaris being one that comes to mind, and he does it in a way that almost completely avoids the sensationalism that many other writers seem to rely on.