Tim Georgeson - BLOOD; or A Long Weekend with my Wife's Family

A flock of cormorants made a cloud of wings above us while the vows were being exchanged. As the bird sounds mingled with the old, Catholic verses, I noticed our father's face among the familiar faces, sadder than any face I had ever seen. I watched it until I heard You may kiss the bride and someone yelled Where's the friend in charge of digital pictures? and someone else yelled She's over there in the bushes, bawling! When I looked again, that fleeting instant, like so many with our father, had vanished.

Caia Hagel

BLOOD; or A Long Weekend with my Wife's Family is a combination of two perspectives on the same subject - an eccentric family -- one from the inside looking out (Caia Hagel, writer), and one from the outside looking in (Tim Georgeson, photographer). The action takes place over the end of July long weekend, 2005, on an isolated island in Canada, and centres around a wedding and the interplay of deep and until then dormant emotions among and between family members, which have been awakened by their partially reticent reunion.

Georgeson's images, in their non-literal, dark approach, give a profound, emotional, intensely personal and graphic perspective on the inner workings of a family, and on the individuals within the family's experience of the action: the wedding, the reunion, and the personal reactions to these. There is a lyricism and visual freedom in this portrait. Scars and leftovers and unmade beds, moments of abandon and moments of ceremony are captured. The images are accompanied by Hagel's words - part travel log, part reportage, part journal, part philosophical musing, and include the writer's interviews with family members as well as her own memories, dream fragments and observations. The vignettes are portraits in and of themselves, as well as elucidations on the photographs.

Together Georgeson and Hagel bring to light the sometimes tragic and often humorous characters and events, the nature of blood relationships and dynamics, and the psychological and otherwise un-measurable aspects of personality that are inherited through blood.

Tim Georgesonis a freelance documentary portrait photographer whose work has been published extensively around the world in French Geo, Hotshoe, National Geographic, Colors, Newsweek, Mare, Paris Match, Rolling Stone, New Yorker and The New York Times magazine. His work has been exhibited at solo exhibitions in Sydney, Paris, NY and Amsterdam, as well as at Visa pour L'Image(International festival for photojournalism), World Press Photo exhibition, and The Naarden Photo Festival in the Netherlands. He has won two World Press awards.

Caia Hagel is a freelance print and television journalist whose work features on CityTv networks Arts&Minds, MediaTv and BookTelevision. Her articles have been published in Elle, Epok, Highlife, Hotshoe, National Geographic, POL Oxygen, Oyster, Rolling Stone, and Vogue. Caia is co-scriptwriter and lead actress in Beginnings, which won the Tiger Award at the 2006 Rotterdam International Film Festival.