Family is the book of the M.I.L.K. Collection (Moments of Intimacy, Laughter and Kinship), a competition entered by 17,000 photographers throughout the world whose brief was to capture the essence of humanity through images of family life, friendship and love. James McBride's prologue promotes traditional family life and love as the antidote to the global ills of today. "There is no greater miracle than watching a child being born . . . no greater force on Earth than the warm breath of a toothless old grandma," he writes. The photographs that follow mirror this sentimentality . . . mom, dad and the kids having good times with grandma/pa occasionally getting in on the act. Opening images are of childbirth (what happened to courtship?) eventually leading to closing images of an old person with doting grandchild. In between, the main subject matter is the universal dynamic of parent and child.
It's hard not to like the photographs in this book. The cuteness factor draws lots of oohs and aahs but some photos are too good to be true, with perfect lighting and composition making some feel more contrived than candid. The grainy "grabbed" images may not have reproduced as well but are more telling for their honesty. Let's face it, the over-exposed out-of-focus snaps from the dance floor of the wedding reception are always more fun to look at than the group shot taken by the professional on the church steps.
An image that stands out is Tallmas Kovacs's portrayal of a Hungarian family mourning the death of their young son over his remains as a gypsy band performs his favourite music. It has a haunting directness and integrity. Gabi Reichert's photo of her eight-month-old daughter Amy Sophia gripping her nipple with vice-like teeth is a wonderful moment recorded by a photographer and makes me glad that men don't breastfeed.
It's impossible not to compare this book to the classic The Family of Man (Museum of Modern Art, New York,1955) with an introduction by Edward Steichen, but that seminal work had an innocence, a naivete almost, that it retains almost half a century on. This book is but a pale shadow of that.
Family: A Celebration of Humanity is well designed and produced to a very high standard. Unfortunately, photo captions and information about the photographers don't appear with the photos but are published at the rear of the book, which makes for a lot of flicking back and forward.
Bryan O'Brien is an Irish Times photographer and twice winner of the overall Eircell Press Photographer of the Year award
