September is often the month we start projects. Here's a project I missed out on - a yearly picture of something over my lifetime. Oh well. We can look at other people's versions - today we have a yearly picture of siblings over four decades. It is a distinct one, done by a professional photographer, so the images are compelling. From the NY Times article covering the story:
"Nicholas Nixon was visiting his wife’s family when, “on a whim,” he said, he asked her and her three sisters if he could take their picture. It was summer 1975, and a black-and-white photograph of four young women — elbows casually attenuated, in summer shirts and pants, standing pale and luminous against a velvety background of trees and lawn — was the result. A year later, at the graduation of one of the sisters, while readying a shot of them, he suggested they line up in the same order. After he saw the image, he asked them if they might do it every year. “They seemed O.K. with it,” he said; thus began a project that has spanned almost his whole career. The series, which has been shown around the world over the past four decades, will be on view at the Museum of Modern Art, coinciding with the museum’s publication of the book “The Brown Sisters: Forty Years” in November."
An update in 2021 shows Nicholas Nixon being interviewed about the story HERE. The identify of the four sisters was not revealed for forty years. Although, it would likely have been easy to figure out.
You can look at the pictures easily - there are many articles with the 40 pictures shown - there's a YouTube video that has the progression in 4 minutes. It is HERE. It is a bit strange but as the photographer took such a similar picture each year with each person in the same position, it morphs extremely well. Another version shows the full pictures in progression - it is HERE.
At the end, you will find YouTube's endless versions of 25, 20, etc years of family photos. It makes me realize this is a popular project.
Watching the progression of the passing of a lifetime, that September Song comes to mind, doesn't it? I hear Jimmy Durante's version.
And seeing the pictures, you can understand why Nixon's is so well known - such expressions he has captured.
This is a lily in the Lilycrest Gardens field - such pretty colours and a nice progression of the blooms across the picture.
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