Sandy Nicholson loves photographing faces. In a few weeks, he photographed over 300 of them in Canada and Australia. In these pages, every age is represented, from mere weeks to 100 years. Nicholson says, “It’s an experiment that I wanted to see. Looking closely at an 18-year-old, then a 24-year-old, then a 69-year-old, and then a three-month-old baby—within a few minutes—is wonderful; they are all so different.”
During the photo shoots, Nicholson recorded people talking about how old they are, and the best and worst thing about being that age. His subjects included an angry toddler whose Nintendo DS had been taken away, a man who revealed that his wife was pregnant for the third time, women who had beaten breast cancer, a Holocaust survivor, a teen who acknowledged she’d led a privileged life, and a man who wished for more love. Nicholson notes that if the project had been shot in different countries, such as Afghanistan or Malawi, the answers might have been very different.
Nicholson observed some patterns about aging. “Children under nine were entirely in the present and struggled with the concept of getting older. Most teens and people in their early twenties still consider themselves children, not responsible for much.” Those in their late twenties and early thirties “still seem to enjoy the freedom of ‘not being there yet,’ and have some trepidation about aging.”
He says, “The older people appear to have the best approach. They were reflective and humorous, and talking about love and the loss of friends. Many were just happy to be alive.”
Ultimately, this meditative study of the diversity and beauty of 100 people achieves what any great life story can do: It encourages us to reflect on our own.
