Category: usa

This book presents 27 years of Deanna Dikeman photographing her parents waving goodbye as she left their home after a visit. Just as she was driving away, Dikeman invariably pointed her camera at her parents. What started with a candid snapshot in 1991 turned into a ritual over the years. The book chronicles their farewells as seasons change and years go by, separating black and white photographs from colour photographs. Leaving and Waving — which was originally part of a larger body of work entitled Relative Moments — is a heartfelt exploration of family, the passage of time and the sadness of leaving.

This print is part of a series of 5 prints by women photographers that we have previously published:  Clémentine Schneidermann, Mikiko Hara, Moe Suzuki, Irina Rozovsky and Deanna Dikeman.

This print is part of a series of 5 prints by women photographers that we have previously published: Deanna Dikeman, Clémentine Schneidermann, Moe Suzuki, Irina Rozovsky and Mikiko Hara.

In Deanna Dikeman’s family album, ordinary moments embody universal truths and become a source of daily wonder.

After publishing Leaving and Waving in 2021, which presented only a glimpse of Deanna’s Dikeman’s 3-decade journey to document her family, Chose Commune is proud to introduce the photographer’s larger series in an exhaustive 300-page book: Relative Moments.

In Relative Moments, Deanna Dikeman chronicles ordinary moments of her family’s activities. From gardening to cutting cake, from filling up the bird bath to mending a piece of clothing, from mowing the lawn to picking rhubarb, one gets to discover an everyday that might otherwise go unnoticed. In this book, which was generously edited and sequenced — 200 photographs in total — one is not only meant to see the moment shot in one photograph, but all the moments that compose the story. 

This project captures a visual history of the photographer family’s life, yet, there is an ongoing narrative embedded in these photographs that conveys larger, more universal truths about American culture, familiarity, and the endless source of everyday wonder that surrounds us.