Weekend Portfolio: Martha Naranjo Sandoval

Images and text by Martha Naranjo Sandoval

Why do we take family pictures? To help us remember? As evidence that we were once somewhere doing something with someone? Why can’t our family pictures just be images? Why do we burden them with so much responsibility? Maybe it serves them better to be silent.

Each of these projects starts with family photographs and takes different approaches to uncover the many stories behind them— not only the narratives meant by the photographers, but also the accidental, the cultural, the unexpected, the ones only available through time, the ones only visible after the image has been modified.

I take these pictures for the same reason parents take pictures of their children, to remember and reminisce. When I moved to the US I started taking pictures of what it felt to move. I mostly took pictures of the garbage in my neighborhood and the people I was hooking up with. As time passed the debris on the street felt more quotidian and it stopped being interesting. I now mostly take pictures of my husband, his body, his face, the way we move together in our space. II do not question too much why I’m taking pictures; I just lean into what my eyes want to capture.