Family Resemblance: Finding Yourself in Others
Family Resemblance is a multiyear photo project that documents and celebrates people who are genetically related and bear a strong resemblance to each other. As an adopted person, photographer Eric Mueller always wondered how it would feel to look like someone else. At age forty-five, when he saw a photo of his birth mother for the first time, it triggered the idea to photograph family members with shared physical characteristics.
Book Details
$45
Flexibound
148 pages; 120 Color Photographs; 9 x 9 inches
Published by Daylight Books (May 5, 2020)
Additional Description
Over the course of three years Mueller photographed around 700 people―from newborns to nonagenarians―and asked them what it’s like to resemble each other. The result is Family Resemblance, a book exploring the special bond that certain family members share.
The book is organized into six chapters: Mother/Daughter, Father/Son, Parent/Child, Sisters, Brothers, and Siblings. Interlaced with the photos are quotes from project participants, revealing how resembling one another has affected their lives and relationships.
The book also contains the essay, “The Missing Picture” by Ann Fessler, author of The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade. The introduction to the book, written by the photographer, is a personal account of growing up as an adopted person and the search for his origin.