There arose last week a sort of unexpected tradition. I’ll start at the beginning. Five years ago, my brother spent his sophomore year of college in France. On the day that he left, I gathered my family together for a portrait to commemorate the occasion.
The result was, obviously, magic. Even now as I was going through the photos, I was sort of shocked to discover that this was the third shot we took. It was perfect, save for my haircut, which is a long story.
When it came time to see the young man off to graduate school last week, I thought it only fitting to take another iteration of the photo. But trying to recapture that magic was never going to work, and I really should have acknowledged that from the beginning.
Things have obviously changed: I’ve gained a wife, my mom has gained a cat. And also it was a different day and a different time and just a different life. It’s funny, all the same components of your life are around, but then, your life is something else all of a sudden.
Like such as: my wife is pregnant, so I set my mom off by noting that the next time we take this photo, our baby will be in it.
So the new photo turned out to not recapture the magic at all, which, once again, we should have seen coming. It was its own magic, and that should really be what we aim for.
Above: “Austerity Runs in the Genes, 1,” 2005; four staging shots, 2011; “Austerity Runs in the Genes, 2,” 2011
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