Family Photography Now edited by Sophie Howarth & Stephen McLaren published by Thames and Hudson.

A beautiful and moving anthology exploring the complex dynamics of contemporary family life.

Forty international photographers present pictures, albums and archives, many never previously published in book form. They explore relationships between brothers and sisters, parents and children, step-families and in-laws, outcasts and adoptees. Featured projects include Birte Kaufman’s award-winning images of Irish travellers, Magnum member Trent Parke’s darkly amusing shots of his family in suburban Australia, Nadia Sablin’s elegy to her elderly aunts living in rural Russia, and Elina Brotherus’s devastating records of failed IVF.

Two critically engaging essays address how photographs have become an essential tool for families to lay down memories, reinforce identities and understand emotional attachments.

A bold and brave book that will captivate everyone curious about other people's lives, and all those who turn to photography to celebrate or make sense of their own family.

The review on The Guardian:

"Bangladeshi photographer Sarker Protick grew up knowing his grandparents, John and Prova, as strong, hard-working people, whose work took them all around the country. “As they got older and became confined mostly to their apartment, I visited them often. But the pace of our lives had become so different, and sometimes I struggled to know what to talk about. I started making photographs as a different way to spend time with them. They loved it. So did I. The experience of photography gave us much more than just photographs.”

This photograph of John and Prova embracing in bed is a particularly poignant one for their grandson. “By that time, their declining health meant they slept in separate beds, and they were only rarely able to be physically close. I moved their beds together to set the picture up. It is the last photograph ever taken of them together. After Prova died, John asked me to print a copy of it for him to put up in their apartment.”






COPYRIGHT© 2024 SARKER PROTICK