This is the portfolio that was the biggest hit this week: a serious topic with extreme modesty by Sophie Knittel. We decided to publish it apart from our weekend feature, The Eye of the Readers.
My mother was diagnosed with her fourth cancer two years ago. This time it was inoperable, the heavy treatment, “a one blow rifle shot,” as the doctor described it. It was likely that she would not make it. My mother never liked being photographed, but she and I thought it might be the last opportunity to take pictures of her, to leave a visual record. This series is a subjective and modest narrative that describes her story, her fight against the disease, from the confirmation of the diagnosis to her miraculous remission, through her hospital stay, her 87lbs, and her empty house during the four months of her hospitalization.
The images were taken with a Pentacon Six TL, a cheap East-German medium format camera dating from the Cold War. A tool of war, made of metal with some mechanical problems, like my mother.
