2000-04-04 Four sisters' lives: twenty five pictures

This is a maginificent book. Slim, elegant and almost hand-made, it compliments the beautiful photographs it contains; a collection of 25 group pictures of four sisters - one each year between 1975 and 1999. Time and the capturing of it is the very essence of photography. Age affects us all. These documents chart the progress of four lives. Little is known about the Brown sisters other than their names and respective ages, and that Bebe - the eldest - married the photographer, Nicholas Nixon, in 1974. We fill in the rest, as we recognise signs of teenage rebellion, pregnancy, ill health, maturity, periods of contentment and the peculiar phenomenon of individuals apparently ageing ten years in a single year or looking impossibly youthful in the next years picture. Fascinating.

The previous collection of the Brown Sisters photographs was available in Nicholas Nixon's Pictures of People. The last picture was from 1987. Being familiar with Nixon's work for the last ten years, to me the Brown Sisters always looked like they did in 1987. I imagined that if I met them in the street they would still look that way. But to see the remaining pictures - twelve years of these womens' lives in the 90 seconds it took me to eagerly flip the pages for the first time was an extraordinary experience. How these women's faces have changed, and all the clues therein as to how their lives have developed.

Much has aleady been written about Nixon's old-fashioned 10x8 camera. His contact prints are exquisite and the reproductions in this book are very fine. But these pictures are about more than technique. They show more than any words could ever say and thankfully the accompanying essay is brief and well-judged. The pictures are full of emotion and detail and stories - the things that affect us all. Take a look.