A Brothers’ Diptych

Right before Xmas this past year, the bee came up with a great gift idea for his mom. The previous year he had given her, along with his 3 older brothers, a framed copy of a photograph taken of the boys sometime around 1984. In the picture, all the brothers at that time (the youngest wouldn’t turn up until 1991) posed for a picture in front of the fireplace in the family’s living room.

As with most kids, it’s usually a chore to get them to sit still for a minute, let alone the time needed to organize a proper photo but his mom managed to get a group shot where at least half of them are actually looking at the camera. Two outta four ain’t bad, right?

So this past holiday season, bee decided it might be cool to recreate the scene, some 26 years later, in much the same fashion. The original fireplace was unavailable since they had moved from that house in the early 90’s but we were lucky enough to find a suitable replacement to hold the photo shoot.

With myself behind the camera and some 80 or so shutter clicks later, I was pretty sure we had found a great match-up to the original. The framing and tone of the second picture doesn’t perfectly mimic the original but I think, as a collective effort, we did pretty darn good.

top photo: circa 1984, bottom photo: December 2010

A lot can change in a quarter century but I find it quite refreshing that a lot manages to stay so much the same.