Two

by Melissa Ann Pinney

Overview

Two is an exquisite collection of captivating and thought-provoking photographs by award-winning photographer Melissa Ann Pinney that contemplate the essence of duality in our relationships and in the world that surrounds us. Edited and introduced by Pinney's friend, New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett, the volume is filled with memorable images that encase rich stories: two children at play, a pair of aging friends, parent and child, couples in love. But deeper meanings can lurk in the margins of the frame, in the expressions in the eyes, in the disconnect of the connection. Photographs without human subjects bear their own mysteries: two nesting tea cups, an indoor pool, two chairs in autumn.Pinney, whose work is in the permanent collections of dozens of American museums, including the Metropolitan, MoMA, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Getty, aims her lens at pairs—mostly, but not always human—that display or imply elusive connections of mind, of spirit, or of simply the act of being.

Patchett, whose enthusiasm for Pinney's vision helped bring this project to fruition, has paired the photographs with remarkable essays about the nature of two, commissioned from some of the best writers at work today: Edwidge Danticat, Barbara Kingsolver, Richard Russo, Elizabeth Gilbert, Susan Orlean, Alan Gurganus, Maile Meloy, Elizabeth McCracken, Jane Hamilton, and Billy Collins (who provides a beautiful poem celebrating "two creatures bound by wonderment.")

"I've always been interested in watching people together. I wonder what their story is, who they are to each other," Pinney writes in the preface. "No matter how uninspired I feel, how dull I think a place is, when I look at the world through a camera a new beginning takes place."

Filled with startling, sensitive images and nuanced prose, Two is an illuminating keepsake of human experience, at once universal and unique.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062334428
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/14/2015
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 7.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Melissa Ann Pinney is the author of Regarding Emma: Photographs of American Women and Girls and Girl Ascending. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the International Center of Photography, the George Eastman House, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. She lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Editorial Reviews

Melissa Ann Pinney’s remarkable photographs convey connection across every page: the mirroring of posture, mood and attention; the relationship between two bodies connected in conversation, spirit, focus or wariness.

Washington Post

Together, the groupings of Two insinuate what is perhaps the most powerful pairing of all: that between the image and the written word.

Boston Globe

There is a candid aesthetic to Pinney’s work. Even her posed photographs grant viewers a glimpse into lives-in-action... The accompanying essays, which delve into the nature of pairs and twosomes, make the book even more compelling.

Shelf Awareness

These photographs are replete with silences the viewer cannot help but try to fill.

Knoxville News

2015-01-19
Salt-of-the-earth collection of photos paired with loosely related essays by contemporary literary luminaries.Using the theme of "twos" and "pairs," Pinney (Photography/Columbia Coll. Chicago; Girl Ascending, 2011, etc.) includes a number of heartfelt but ultimately uninspiring color photos bolstered by the essayistic efforts of some of today's most established mainstream writers. Acclaimed novelist Patchett (This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, 2013, etc.) serves as the editor and provides an encomium-filled introduction. Other contributors matching words to images include Edwidge Danticat, Elizabeth Gilbert, Richard Russo, Barbara Kingsolver, Billy Collins, Maile Meloy and Susan Orlean. Unfortunately, no matter how the "two" theme is rendered, it often rings hollow: Many of the brief accompanying essays suffer from a sense of being a specially commissioned piece of workmanlike writing rather than the product of inspiration. A few of these essays, however, do leave memorable traces, especially Gilbert's musings in "Two Heads on a Pike," about the extraordinary and empathetic instincts her indispensable proofreading foil showed when considering her work, acting in both antagonistic and complementary ways to improve Gilbert's work. In "The Dollies," Elizabeth McCracken most successfully embodies the "two" theme, delivering a brief but touching portrait of an odd but abiding bond between twin sisters. "If you were twins, you couldn't be alike," she writes. "You had to share. Better to take all of math and forgo music than to be only so-so at both. Better to love public speaking and understand you would never be able to carry a tune. That made sense to me. Who would want to be only average at anything?" On the whole, the book is well-intentioned. However, neither the photos nor the accompanying essays contain the sort of deep, evocative power to make for more than a fleetingly interesting project. A quietly ambitious multimedia production that doesn't quite live up to its potential.

Kirkus Review