Bobby Neel Adams

Family Tree

November 6, 2008 - November 30, 2008

Family Tree is a series of portraits by Bobby Neel Adams that combine two separate photographs of immediate family members into one image. A Family Tree portrait visually maps the genetic characteristics we inherit and demonstrates how we are genetically coded from the moment of conception. To accomplish this, Adams makes individual portraits of two family members, prints them at equal size, then tears the photographs and glues them back together to make a single image of the two family members. The composite photograph could be viewed as an eerie life-map, as the image of two different family members could be mistaken for a montage of the same person at different stages of life.