TRIPTYCH: SIXTEEN MONTHS
Sanders McNew has published his second book, Triptych: Sixteen Months, the culmination of two years of photography featuring his wife, Melanie.
Introduction
Sanders saunters into the living room and picks up his nine month old child, Charlie, and tells me: "I've always got to pick up my son in the morning. He will not let me pass." His young wife, Melanie, is scrambling eggs and toasting bialys. I'm in their rambling Upper West Side apartment and it's Sunday morning and there are two-and-a-quarter Tri-X negatives hanging in the kitchen and large black plastic development tanks decorate the floor by the kitchen table. The table is littered with restored Leicas and twin lens Rolleiflexes and next to it is Charlie's high chair that belonged to Sanders's great grandmother. It's old and made of wood. These two New Yorkers are from south of the Mason Dixie line.
Sanders asked me to write the introduction to his black-and-white love poems. He told me the photos that follow were about Melanie's journey from preconception to conception to carrying the baby to having the baby and they are but to me (every photo a photographer takes is a mirror upon oneself) photographs about Sanders. The fear and anguish on Melanie's face are the feelings of being scared that every expectant father has. Her joys of being a mother are his.
I think about the great and grand couples who were both photographers - Helmut and June Newton come immediately to mind. Last night when I came in late, Sanders had forgotten to take his film out of the fixer. This morning, just after dawn, I found Charlie playing in the living room, and Melanie cutting negatives by the sink. If one were to think about it ... this exchange, this bond between two people, could not be made with the digital world. It would be dependent on a third party: the computer. There is a patina, a soul to their young life together, that is held together by film.
I am glad that Melanie enjoys being naked in front of the camera. I would have liked to have seen shots of Sanders (but not naked). I am glad that Melanie's self-portraits are in the book to offset that separation that exists between photographer and subject. But I greatly enjoy seeing on each page the love Sanders has
for Melanie.
Eric Kroll
WE HAD A BABY LAST YEAR. Our son Charlie appears in this book. But this book is not about Charlie. It is about Melanie. And, if photographs tell the story of their maker, I suppose it is about me as well.
2008 rained heartache and calamity upon us. Every time we thought nothing else could befall us, something did. By Labor Day, I had begun to photograph Melanie with a documentary purpose, even though I was not at first aware of the reason, and even when I could hardly think to load the camera.
Melanie was released from hospital the day we elected Barack Obama president. We got on with the task of mending ourselves. We made Charlie the week before Christmas.
For Melanie,
who revealed to me
the possibilities of soulmates.
By: Sanders McNew (USA)
If you would like to see an online preview, or to buy a copy, you can find it in the
Blurb Bookstore
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright ©Sanders McNew . All rights reserved. This photo is not to be used as free stock.
Use without written consent by the author (Sanders McNew) is illegal and punishable by law.
Sanders McNew has published his second book, Triptych: Sixteen Months, the culmination of two years of photography featuring his wife, Melanie.
Introduction
Sanders saunters into the living room and picks up his nine month old child, Charlie, and tells me: "I've always got to pick up my son in the morning. He will not let me pass." His young wife, Melanie, is scrambling eggs and toasting bialys. I'm in their rambling Upper West Side apartment and it's Sunday morning and there are two-and-a-quarter Tri-X negatives hanging in the kitchen and large black plastic development tanks decorate the floor by the kitchen table. The table is littered with restored Leicas and twin lens Rolleiflexes and next to it is Charlie's high chair that belonged to Sanders's great grandmother. It's old and made of wood. These two New Yorkers are from south of the Mason Dixie line.
Sanders asked me to write the introduction to his black-and-white love poems. He told me the photos that follow were about Melanie's journey from preconception to conception to carrying the baby to having the baby and they are but to me (every photo a photographer takes is a mirror upon oneself) photographs about Sanders. The fear and anguish on Melanie's face are the feelings of being scared that every expectant father has. Her joys of being a mother are his.
I think about the great and grand couples who were both photographers - Helmut and June Newton come immediately to mind. Last night when I came in late, Sanders had forgotten to take his film out of the fixer. This morning, just after dawn, I found Charlie playing in the living room, and Melanie cutting negatives by the sink. If one were to think about it ... this exchange, this bond between two people, could not be made with the digital world. It would be dependent on a third party: the computer. There is a patina, a soul to their young life together, that is held together by film.
I am glad that Melanie enjoys being naked in front of the camera. I would have liked to have seen shots of Sanders (but not naked). I am glad that Melanie's self-portraits are in the book to offset that separation that exists between photographer and subject. But I greatly enjoy seeing on each page the love Sanders has
for Melanie.
Eric Kroll
WE HAD A BABY LAST YEAR. Our son Charlie appears in this book. But this book is not about Charlie. It is about Melanie. And, if photographs tell the story of their maker, I suppose it is about me as well.
2008 rained heartache and calamity upon us. Every time we thought nothing else could befall us, something did. By Labor Day, I had begun to photograph Melanie with a documentary purpose, even though I was not at first aware of the reason, and even when I could hardly think to load the camera.
Melanie was released from hospital the day we elected Barack Obama president. We got on with the task of mending ourselves. We made Charlie the week before Christmas.
For Melanie,
who revealed to me
the possibilities of soulmates.
By: Sanders McNew (USA)
If you would like to see an online preview, or to buy a copy, you can find it in the
Blurb Bookstore
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright ©Sanders McNew . All rights reserved. This photo is not to be used as free stock.
Use without written consent by the author (Sanders McNew) is illegal and punishable by law.
