November 2024 - Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine
by Marc Hoch, Managing Editor
Published November 24, 2024
The soul is the utterly incomprehensible thing inside a person. You can feel it in all forms of action, it expresses itself in language and facial expressions, but it cannot be located, weighed or measured. Sometimes there are portrait photos that turn this inner being inside out and make it atmospherically perceptible beyond all reason. The silent dominance inherent in the soul's workings becomes visible for a moment - and we take a look inside this person and understand who they are. This is moving and frightening at the same time, because such photos always pose the question about our own lives: Who am I myself?
The American photographer Sherrie Nickol knows how to turn this inner self outwards, almost in an old-masterly way. In her first major publication with Hirmer Verlag, the New Yorker shows portraits that are touchingly beautiful in their pursuit of truthfulness. Nickol mainly photographs young women "face to face". Her close-ups reveal an incredible intimacy between the photographer and her models. These women surrender themselves to the camera almost defenselessly, they seem to reveal everything about themselves, either to learn something essential about themselves through the picture or to show this essential: shyness, awakening self-confidence, the desire to be close to someone, complete unity with oneself - all of this can be discovered in the young faces. It is a joy to study these photos, which avoid any ambiguity and are truthful, as a source is truthful.
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