Sarah Mei Herman - Julian & Jonathan

Photographer Sarah Mei Herman was 20 when her half-brother Jonathan was born in 2001. When he was a small child she began to photograph him regularly alongside her father, Julian. The images in her forthcoming book—Julian & Jonathan—span more than 20-years and document Jonathan’s visible growth from child to adult, the steadier changes in Julian and Herman’s own journey as an artist, daughter, and half-sister. ‘I’m interested in the triangulation between us; the changing proximity and distance we share, and the peculiar feeling of looking in on a world to which I don’t fully belong. Over the years, the dynamic between them—and us—has ebbed and flowed. Sometimes they were close, and at other times they were further removed from one another. They have both dealt with the hardship of loss and its many painful consequences. My images of Jonathan throughout his youth, whether alone or with our father, chronicle these shifts and turns. With each photographic session, I attempt to get clo