Photographer Photographs Her Friends In 2000 And Then In 2017

07/30/2020

Blink, a day passes, blink, a year, two, ten. Time is an unstoppable force we have to live with, and to highlight its passage, photographer Josephine Sittenfeld has recreated the portraits of her college classmates she took in 2000.

Funny how differently people change in 17 years

During those days, Sittenfeld was a junior at Princeton University. She photographed her friends on medium-format film, and the shots eventually ended up collecting dust in her parents' closet. But last spring, as her fifteen-year college reunion was approaching, she remembered the photos and decided to recreate them during the event.

The result is "Reunion," a series of before-and-after shots that have almost the same feel as class gatherings themselves. The pictures show a fast-forwarded transformation of the individuals rather than a gradual long-term change. "At twenty, I felt something intangible, indescribable, full of energy," Sittenfeld's former roommate said. "Only now am I able to describe it—the ultimate sensing of a life ahead." In the later shots, people in front of the lens look less resistant to its intimacy. Shoulders back, bodies less tensed. Could it be because of the reminiscence of everything that came before?

#1 Sophie