Frozen in Time: Photographs

An exquisite photographic narrative chronicling a turbulent mother-daughter relationship in the serene setting of a beautiful but decrepit Maine home, Frozen in Time is at once beautiful and heart-wrenching. Sarah C. Butler’s luminous photographs tell a poignant story of coming to terms with a difficult mother in a way that is both intimately personal and universally relatable.

Drawn to reconnect with her mother after a long estrangement, Butler found that taking photographs of the partially restored Maine farmhouse where the older woman chose to live ultimately gave her the perspective to understand and respect her mother’s choices. The images Butler made there are striking and evocative. A pair of little girls’ dresses that once belonged to Butler and her sibling, which her mother kept for decades; a corner of the beloved but fading house with its foundation jacked up on a pile of rocks; a partial glimpse of her mother, present yet unknowable-- these and others reveal a complex and compelling psychological narrative.

This is a book about family, distance and reconciliation, and, finally, the beauty to be found in acceptance. It is also a stunning visual tour de force that will mesmerize photography aficionados and students of family relations alike.

Sarah C. Butler is the author of A Portrait of a Maine Island (Glitterati, 2009.) She spends part of each year on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine, where she creates most of her work. She travels the rest of the year to find inspiration for her work. She attended Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland; Rockport College in Rockport, Maine; and Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. She regularly exhibits her work in galleries throughout the northeastern US. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Vicki Goldberg is a photography critic and author based in New Hampshire, USA. She has written for The New York Times and Vanity Fair; her books include The Power of Photography: How Photographs Changed Our Lives; Light Matters (a selection of her essays); and The White House: The President’s Home in Photographs and History, and the biography Margaret Bourke-White. She has lectured in Belgium, England, France, China, Korea, Norway and Portugal as well as America. She lives in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. Alison Morley is the Chair of the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism Program at the International Center of Photography. Alison’s photographs have been published in several books, including Backstory: Screenwriters of the Golden Age, edited by Patrick McGilligan. She has also previously held the position of Photo Editor for The New York Times, Elle, Esquire, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. She has lectured and led workshops in the US, Argentina, Bangladesh, Bosnia, China, Hungary, Peru, the Philippines, and Uganda. She lives in New York, New York.