The Endings: Photographic Stories of Love, Loss, Heartbreak, and Beginning Again

The Endings: Photographic Stories of Love, Loss, Heartbreak, and Beginning Again by Caitlin Cronenberg and Jessica Ennis                Hardback Book: 136 pages             

All of the stories in this book are true, they are either things that one of the authors personally went through or a story of heartbreak, sorrow, resilience that someone told them about after having experienced it.     The authors discuss in detail all of the scenarios, then, they bring in known actresses to portray the real people in the scenes the authors designed along with the props they added in then they take as many photographs as they feel required to come up with two or three perfect shots that capture the emotion of the moment our eye sees and our hearts commiserate with.   They explained the scenes to the actors then let them run with it and followed the actors through the shock, the tears, the anger, the disbelief of the crushing blow happening in these Kodak moments.    When I first noticed the book I thought it would  be a gathering of photographs of the real people that someone just happened to be there in the instant and captured raw moments of sheer pain, severing from the soulmate you thought you’d spend your life with only to be left alone and broken or perhaps resolved that this too shall pass and as Gloria Gaynor sings, “I will survive.”     I felt it to be a great premise and the possibilities were endless for naked truism. People baring their gut-wrenching insides and letting the blood and tears mix on the floor.  Not so, though.    The actresses did their best, I’m sure, but, knowing the photographs were staged took away the realism and  the value of the photos in my estimation.   I was wanting photos torn from Life magazine’s style of random in your face reality shots of moments captured on film that could never be repeated because they were genuine.  They could be imitated and that is what these shots felt like.   They were good for what they were and the actresses did lovely jobs but nothing can truly compare to the dynamic effect of something true and beautiful in its simply being actual.   A good book and an inspirational one, as well.   I think creative people could take these ideas and expand upon them and come up wigh a myriad of wonderful art work.    I found the book a little flat and hollow for its lack of realism but valuable as ideas to spur someone on to try the Life Magazine approach.  

 - Shirley J