Afterword

Picturing the Family

This is a book of insightful photographs by Henry Horenstein. Horenstein’s images are made with a serious but loving look at his family and friends, portraying them as something other than picture-perfect. At times they are whimsical—the two aunts in their wildly patterned 1970s pantsuits. At times they are poignant—the gentle gesture of a young girl tentatively holding her mother’s belt, trying to connect with her, an effort met only with sternness and stiffness. Horenstein isn’t afraid to embrace the quirkiness and humanity of his circle. Exploring his photographs allows us to examine his family as he saw them, and challenges us to go back to our own family photographs with a new perspective.

Photography and family are inexorably linked. Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot and Frenchman Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre were early inventors of photographic processes. Talbot’s success was fueled by his family’s position in English society, its financial success, and individual support and tolerance of his experiments all over the family home of Lacock Abbey. Daguerreotypes were commercially successful because they replaced hand-rendered portraits of loved ones on ivory with realistic portraits. Samuel F. B. Morse, the “father of American photography,” practiced making daguerreotypes by using his daughter and her friends as sitters. In America, it was not the first photograph that became a source of photographic history quibbles, but rather the first portrait photograph—often noted as the 1840 daguerreotype by Dr. John William Draper of his sister Dorothy Catherine Draper.

In some ways, these inventors and early practitioners of photography were no different than today’s beginning photographer. They opted to photograph family and friends because they were readily available and created a physically, emotionally, and psychologically safe environment in which to experiment. In this sense, Henry Horenstein is no different than Talbot or Morse. As Horenstein was stretching his photographic wings, he turned his camera to the people who would accept him and make it easy for him to photograph.  However, Horenstein and those of us who practice and study photography today have something the early practitioners and subjects did not—a history with photographs and photography.

In the introduction to his Time Frames: The Meaning of Family Pictures (1980), Michael Lesy writes: “Pictures are like frozen dreams whose manifest content may be understood at a glance but whose content is enmeshed in unconscious associations, cultural norms, art historical clichés, and transcendental motifs. Pictures that are both clichés and archetypes, vulgar and miraculous, fact and fiction.” In other words, photographs are complicated and layered with meaning by the photographer as they are made, and over time by what individual viewers bring to the images. Horenstein’s seemingly simple, straightforward photographs require us to peel back many layers to get to the core.

Horenstein brought a specific set of photographic notions and experiences to his body of work in addition to being a technologically and artistically skilled student of the medium. As a member of the group he was photographing—his family—he had the advantage of knowing their views of photography; this would shape his interaction with them. Although photography was not prevalent in his family, occasional snapshots were taken. It’s fairly evident when we start to study the details in Horenstein’s pictures of his parents’ home that until he and his camera came along, photography had been reserved for special occasions. His parents’ house contains almost exclusively formal portraiture: wedding photographs, the grandchildren’s school pictures, studio portraits of grandparents and children. It didn’t occur to Horenstein to become a photographer until he was a college student.

Henry Horenstein was steeped in history at the University of Chicago in the late 1960s, both academically and culturally. There he was introduced to the idea that history is created by the lives of everyday people, not just political and military leaders. He refined this concept while studying not only at the University of Chicago but also in England. And while at the former, he found this idea echoed in the photographic work of Chicago-based, self-taught documentary photographer Danny Lyon. 

Horenstein didn’t begin to photograph until he was twenty. He has joked on occasion about “photographers get[ting] more girls than historians” being his motivation for switching to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). But truthfully, it was through photography that he found a way to document and observe a variety of fringe activities and subcultures that held his interest—horse racing, country music, baseball, and contemporary burlesque.

Horenstein was finishing his degree at RISD and starting out as a young photographer when these pictures were made between 1970 and 1976. He was a dynamic and energetic photographer, with multiple personal-photography projects and paying jobs. He was teaching at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts, inspiring other young photographers, like Nan Goldin; photographing the country music scene from his perspective and experience; creating the occasional album cover for the newly founded Rounder Records; and writing textbooks on black-and-white photography. (His early textbooks featured family and friends. The photograph of his parents standing in the yard with a tree in the background is on the dedication page of his 1977 book Beyond Basic Photography. They are featured again, unidentified, on page four as “A negative of correct density.” Mom at the kitchen sink with the two poodles is shown as an example of how developing the same negative on the same paper but using a different developer makes a difference.)

At RISD, Horenstein studied with master photographers Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, and took photography courses with Minor White. Horenstein owes much to the advice offered to him by Callahan to “photograph the people and places you are naturally drawn to.” Callahan is also known to have said, “I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting,” Callahan may not have said this directly to Horenstein, but clearly, Horenstein embraces both ideas. Horenstein’s approach—photographing within his comfort zone, take note of his personal feelings and still being able to explore any topic—has served him well.

When he turned to the familiar subject of family and friends, it was with the same historical interest and approach as to the ponies at the track or the fans of country music. Even immersed in an environment in which he is a participant, Horenstein can pull away, sit on the crux of change, and photograph what was, and what is coming, in the process, documenting a sweep of time. He does this without nostalgia, but instead with frankness and acceptance. Horenstein doesn’t photograph to hang on to the past, but to see the present.

In truth, it’s easy to look at Horenstein’s photographs, but difficult to talk about them. They are completely accessible and familiar, something like snapshots of our own families. However, these aren’t quite snapshots. And this isn’t our family. They are strangers to us. But by looking, we can begin to tell how people are related. And we find a number of the photographs constructed in a way that we can relate to them. The photographs are laden with vernacular references familiar to many readers. For example, the older couple by a tree with their tight body language suggesting they are more likely married than, say, siblings. We’ve seen this tradition of posing in front of trees in our own albums. Perhaps we’ve placed married people in front of trees to symbolize longevity and strength. And perhaps the couple in front of a tree is a reference to the “family tree,” plus a way of creating a solid, framing background. There is also the group of womenfolk arranged on the front steps, Mom and Dad with the dog in front of the house, and various pairings of aunts, uncles, and other relatives that similarly appear in our own snapshots and albums.

But in Horenstein’s photographs we find a few things that are likely not in our family photographs, such as empty hallways and pictures of the bathroom devoid of people. I’m reluctant to call this group of photographs an “album.” It is not constructed the way most albums are produced, and it does not carry the storytelling aspect most family albums require. Horenstein isn’t seated on the couch next to us telling us related and unrelated stories as we page through. These are art photographs, with family as subject matter.

Each photograph stands on its own, with strong composition, controlled lighting, and content with something to say. Taken together they reveal easy and generous relationships as well as the difficult and challenging ones that exist in all families. Horenstein’s approach ably combines the immediacy of snapshots, the structure of portraiture, and the directness of documentary photography, constructing a string of photographs to weave us in and out of the ups and downs, closeness and remoteness, and complexity of family life.

We all have a family, with relationships there that are tangled, chaotic, and continually changing. We cannot help but try to see ourselves-or the crazy uncle, the rude aunt, the benevolent matriarch, the sulky sibling, the hard-working father, or the black-sheep cousin-in Horenstein’s photographs in order to relate to them. But … how do we talk about them? Are we supposed to be “nice” about every photograph because each is so personal to the photographer, and as decent human beings, we don’t wish to hurt his feelings? These photographs are presented in such a way that we are compelled to respond to them, even if it is the most basic reaction—“I like it/ don’t like it.” So we have to make a statement that will sound judgmental, and after all, who are we to judge someone else’s family? And what are we judging the photographs against anyway? Well, we are judging against the ideals of a “picture-perfect” family. 

The picture-perfect family has existed in art since humans started drawing families. Art history reinforces concepts of certain kinds of families, such as the Holy Family. That image is so pervasive and powerful that it is inevitable, intentional or not, for sitters to arrange themselves and artists to compose sitters in reference to the Holy Family for artistic and ideological associations. Horenstein’s photograph of the young couple and baby shows a modern version with the parental roles reversed. The father, shorter than the mother, is holding the cherubic baby with pride and love, the mother seemingly more overwhelmed at the magnitude of parenthood and responsibility.

Art history also dictates what portraiture looks like, and the early daguerreotypes of the 1840s followed suit. A portrait-sitting was a rare event for most people and an expression of solemnity was deemed appropriate for the grand occasion (this was even more of a reason than the fact of long exposure times). Fortunately, other ideas about how subjects can be posed and photographed have since expanded the ways portraits are rendered.

Social and cultural norms also reinforced what families look like. To some degree, the Eastman Kodak Company helped established the rules and protocol as to what to photograph with the introduction of its Kodak and Brownie cameras around 1900. The ability to acquire a camera and film came about in an age of new freedoms—leisure time and disposable income. This allowed a new generation to picture themselves and the things most important to them—home, family, and friends. 

At first, the “You push the button, we do the rest” campaign offered the photographer two options: the set of single, mounted images would be returned, or the Eastman Kodak Company would put them in an album. It wasn’t long before the album option dropped away. The album structured by Kodak did not give photographers the autonomy to select or deselect the photographs, and did not allow them to organize the pictures. This meant that out-of-focus and other “bad” photos would be included, and there was no way to personalize the arrangement of pictures. The creator of an album has the ability to control the family narrative, choosing what to include and omit. In general, photographer-arranged albums are the happy and idealized versions of families and individuals.

Between the desire and urge to photograph significant and milestone moments in life, and instruction manuals accompanied by picture-perfect examples, it was hard not to compare your own amateur pictures to the beautifully staged advertisements and wonder how you measured up. Whatever brand was used, the prevalence of Kodak advertising and instruction reinforced ideas about the ability of the camera to preserve family. Today we are left with generations of snapshots and albums that are similarly structured because of  the camera and film manufacturers and because of our (the makers and the consumers) adherence to their strictures. We take photographs when we want to preserve, record, and document. It’s a fairly standard list across most families—celebrating milestones and rituals, births, birthdays, graduations, weddings, religious and secular holidays, parades, vacations, and such. Photographed less frequently are the infirm and dying, the dead, and funerals. Film and camera companies know this list and so their products are developed to mesh with those needs. We tend not to deviate and they tend not to deviate, thus the standard photographs still, after a hundred and more years, have not really changed.

The movies and television sitcoms of the 1950s added to the perception of the picture-perfect family with shows like Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. Horenstein, who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s, experienced life as a typical middle-class American. His parents were more aligned to traditional roles and expectations, as portrayed by the Andersons and Cleavers and other TV families. Then as a young man in the late 1960s and 1970s, he watched, shared, and participated in the cultural changes that called his parents’ generation into question. We can see this in his photographs when one compares the pristine, ordered home of his parents to the frenetic residences of friends. A young woman close to Horenstein’s age, at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and her cigarettes, seems painfully trapped, lulled by the monotony of keeping house.

However, Horenstein’s photographs are not so much about the overall trials and tribulations of the era, but rather seeing how family and friends, as individuals or small units, chose to place themselves within the larger family and culture. Thirty or more years have passed since Horenstein took these pictures. Have families changed since then?

From the 1940s to the 1960s the “nuclear” family thrived. From 1960 to 2000, the divorce rate doubled. The percentage of single-parent families with children under eighteen grew from 5 to 13 percent. Five percent of children were born to unmarried mothers in 1960; in 2000 it was 33 percent. Additionally, Americans are marrying later in life, and the number of children per family has generally gone down. But even though families statistically are more diverse now than during the time Horenstein photographed his, the need for and importance of family remain paramount.

Tom Bamberger notes in his 1991 exhibition catalog Blood Relatives noticed that although the majority of photographs made by amateur photographers are of family, art photographers rarely incorporate family members. Among those few who did was Englishwoman Julia Margaret Cameron. She photographed family, friends, and neighbors as luscious Pre-Raphaelite subjects in the 1860s. Alfred Stieglitz produced well-known images around Lake George, New York, but mostly as serious snapshots, not serious art. Bamberger also points out that early fine art photographers such as Gertrude Kasebier, Edward Steichen, Alfred Kuhn, and Clarence White photographed family members with a hefty dose of applied aestheticism. Edward Weston photographed his lovers and sons as subjects as they fit within his modernist concerns. Family members were seen more as elements of composition rather than as broader statements about relationships.

“The family” as a topic for art photographers blossomed in the 1980s. Many people are now familiar with Sally Mann and her highly charged photographs of her children, Larry Sultan’s saturated color photographs of parents, and Tina Barney’s tableaux of her familial relationships. The power of the snapshot as a tool to examine family relationships is revealed by Lorie Novak’s installations. These photographers postdate Horenstein’s explorations of his family and serve to emphasize the wide acceptance of family as subject matter in the art world in the last quarter-century.

One photographer laying the groundwork of family as subject matter before the color photographs and installations of the 1980s was Emmet Gowin. Just before Horenstein began photographing his suburban Massachusetts family in the 1970s, Gowin was photographing his family in Danville, Virginia. Both men were RISD students who worked with Harry Callahan.

Gowin photographed (and still does) his immediate family and neighbors. His black-and-white photographs of the same era as Horenstein’s revel in the glory of family and love, like a dog rolling on his back on a spring green lawn, even if the lawn isn’t mowed and has weeds and perhaps a bit of a stink. Gowin writes: “I wouldn’t say that pictures of my own family are ‘more personal’ than the other photographs I make. But because family relationships involve some of our deepest intimacies, the photographs of one’s own family do seem to burn at a different temperature…. I wanted to pay attention to the body and personality that had agreed, out of love, to reveal itself.”

Horenstein was aware of Gowin’s intimate family photographs, revealed in a loose, snapshot style. Even if Horenstein had been motivated to photograph his family from a similar point of view, his family members simply held their feelings closer to themselves than the earthier Gowins. In part this is due simply to differences in the families, but also to the photographers. Gowin is a few years older, and graduated a few years ahead of Horenstein. Gowin was in a different place in his life then, with a family, in-laws, and children, and a childhood home. Horenstein, younger and single, did not encounter family on a daily basis in the way Gowin did as a father and husband.

Horenstein’s photographs are most likely to be compared to Larry Sultan’s. They have several elements in common, mainly that the subjects are photographed as they are, in the moment, without regard for time to primp beforehand. They are of middle-class families in which the parents are of similar ages. But really, they are two very different photography projects. The most obvious difference is that Horenstein’s work is black-and-white and Sultan’s is in color. Horenstein photographed from 1970 to 1976, starting in his early twenties. Sultan began photographing in 1983 as a thirty-seven-year-old. Their intentions also differ. Sultan endeavored to photograph, interview, videotape, and overtly wrestle with his parents’ aging, memories, and family history. Horenstein stands unobtrusively before his subjects, quietly capturing the moment between himself and them. In his mind, he has the photographs sequenced together and waits as they reveal their own connections over time. 

In Flesh & Blood, a 1992 catalog of photographic portraits made by well-known photographers of their own families, photo critic Andy Grundberg says: “the interest in depicting one’s private environment and genetic heritage reflects a widespread need to understand more clearly who we are and where we come from.” By photographing his family, Horenstein could study his family in a different way, to see them in a new light, looking for clues to understand the family relationships. Doug DuBois, who has also photographed his family, wrote: “In my most intimate photographs there is a detachment that speaks of my isolation. I no longer see my family as an assured source of comfort, but as part of the confusion of my life. In the conflict between intimacy and detachment, I feel the loss of my childhood family.” 

Horenstein, the youngest of three and the only boy, was given a bit more leeway than his sisters in childhood. This conveyed into his adulthood. Horenstein embraced the freedom and support offered to him, while recognizing the conflict it created. You can see this in the photograph of his mother in the kitchen. She is relaxed enough in her own environment. Her expression, though, shows her internal hesitation to the idea of being recorded in her dirty smock. Yet she remains compliant because the photo is for her dear son with the camera. You can see it in the face of Hornstein’s sister seated by the window, with her hand on her hip: “Go ahead and take your picture, Henry.”

Horenstein saw what working in an office was like for his father. Photographed at his place of business, his father is tight-lipped, his extremities held close to his body. Photographically, there is distance between that man and the photographer, always something between him and the photographer—a desk, a conference table. At home, washing the car or having a drink, Horenstein’s father is accessible, relaxed, almost a different-looking person.  

So Horenstein knew where he stood in the family and how the family felt about him: the older members pleased to be photographed for posterity by the photographer in the family; the immediate family more tenuous, yet indulgent; the youngsters open and playful; and friends eager to take him seriously. Can we say that in our twenties we were so observant? To really document our family and our relationships, are we willing to be honest about how we feel about them? Could we boldly capture the relationships and share them? Horenstein’s family members—then, and those following—are richer because he made the effort to stand quietly and offer them a chance to connect with him.

—Shannon Thomas Perich