一切都起源于攝影師尼古拉斯的“心血來潮”，從1975年開始，他為布朗四姐妹每年拍一幅合影，至今已經有40年！請看下面由照片記錄的光陰故事。

1999, Brookline, Mass.  

2014, Wellfleet, Mass.

By Susan Minot

思含 選 祝平 注

Nicholas Nixon was visiting his wife’s family when, “on a whim ,” he said, he asked her and her three sisters if he could take their picture. It was summer 1975, and a black-and-white photograph of four young women—elbows casually attenuated, in summer shirts and pants, standing pale and luminous against a velvety background of trees and lawn—was the result. A year later, at the graduation of one of the sisters, while readying a shot of them, he suggested they line up in the same order. After he saw the image, he asked them if they might do it every year. “They seemed O.K. with it,” he said; thus began a project that has spanned almost his whole career. The series, which has been shown around the world over the past four decades, was on view at the Museum of Modern Art, coinciding with the museum’s publication of the book The Brown Sisters: Forty Years in November, 2014.

Who are these sisters? We’re never told (though we know their names: from left, Heather, Mimi, Bebe and Laurie; Bebe, of the penetrating gaze, is Nixon’s wife). The human impulse is to look for clues, but soon we dispense with our anthropological scrutiny—Irish? Yankee, quite likely, with their decidedly glamour-neutral attitudes—and our curiosity becomes piqued instead by their undaunted stares. All four sisters almost always look directly at the camera, as if to make contact, even if their gazes are guarded or restrained.

Whenever a woman is photographed, the issue of her vanity is inevitably raised, but Nixon has finessed this with his choice of natural light, casual manner and unfussy preparation. The sisters never discuss what they are going to wear. Bebe Nixon says simply: “We just wear what we feel like wearing that day.”

Throughout this series, we watch these women age, undergoing life’s most humbling experience. While many of us can, when pressed, name things we are grateful to time for bestowing upon us, the lines bracketing our mouths and the loosening of our skin are not among them. So while a part of the spirit sinks at the slow appearance of these women’s jowls, another part is lifted: They are not undone by it. We detect more sorrow, perhaps, in the eyes, more weight in the once-fresh brows. But the more we study the images, the more we see that aging does not define these women. Even as the images tell us, in no uncertain terms, that this is what it looks like to grow old, this is the irrefutable truth, we also learn: This is what endurance looks like.

It is the endurance of sisterhood in particular. Nixon, who grew up a single child, says he has always been particularly intrigued by the sisterly unit, and it shows in these images. With each passing year, the sisters seem to present more of a united front. Earlier assertions of their individuality—the arms folded across the chest, the standing apart—give way to a leaning on one another, as if independence is no longer such a concern. We see what goes on between the sisters in their bodies, particularly their limbs . A hand clasps a sister’s waist, arms embrace arms or are slung in casual solidarity over a shoulder. A palm steadies another’s neck, reassuring. The cumulative effect is dizzying and powerful. When 36 prints were exhibited in a gallery in Granada, Spain, viewers openly wept.

The deepening of the sisters’ relationships extends to the one with Nixon. Each sister has always had the opportunity to weigh in on the annual selection of which shot would represent that year, but in the past 10 years, the process has become much more collaborative. Once, when the sisters were unanimous in a choice that wasn’t the same as Nixon’s, he bowed to their wish. “I have to be fair here,” he said. When his own shadow first appears, falling across the faces—in ’81, ’83 and ’84—alongside the square of his 8-by-10 camera, you can feel him angling to join in, to be part of the group himself. But in later years, the collaborative bond between him and his subjects shows. The women’s eyes now seem to regard the photographer with a glow of trust and sisterly affection. “We’ve gotten close,” Nixon acknowledges.

As we come to the last pictures, we feel the final inevitability that, as Nixon says, “Everyone won’t be here forever.” The implication hovers in the darkening of the palette and in the figures drawing together, huddling as if to stay afloat. To watch a person change over time can trick us into thinking we share an intimacy, and yet somehow we don’t believe that these poses and expressions are the final reflection of the Brown sisters. The sisters allow us to observe them, but we are not allowed in. The reluctance shows particularly in the early pictures: the wary lowered brow, the pressed line of a mouth. Sometimes a body’s stance or the angle of the jaw is downright grudging. These subjects are not after attention, a rare quality in this age when everyone is not only a photographer but often his own favorite subject. In this, Nixon has pulled off a paradox: The creation of photographs in which privacy is also the subject. The sisters’ privacy has remained of utmost concern to the artist, and it shows in the work. Year after year, up to the last stunning shot with its triumphant shadowy mood, their faces and stances say, Yes, we will give you our image, but nothing else.

Vocabulary

1. on a whim: 一時興起。
2. 這是1975年的夏天，她們身著夏季衣褲站在那里，露出纖細的肘部，在身后的樹木和草地作為背景的映襯下，她們的臉蒼白而又發亮——一張四位女性的黑白照片就這樣誕生了。elbow: 肘部；attenuate: 變纖細；luminous: 發光的；velvety: 天鵝絨般柔軟的。
3. span: 跨越，持續。
4. coincide with: 與……一致。
5. penetrating: 有洞察力的。
6. impulse: 沖動；dispense with: 省掉；anthropological: 人類學的；scrutiny: 詳細審查。 7. Yankee: 美國人；glamour-neutral: 中性魅力的；piqued: 被觸怒的；被惹惱的；undaunted: 勇敢的，無畏的。
8. 當一位女性被拍時，她免不了會虛榮心上漲，但是尼克松巧妙地處理了這一點——運用自然的光線，平常的態度和隨意的準備。finesse: 巧妙處理；natural light: 自然光；unfussy: 不小題大做的。
9. 我們當中的很多人，如果不得不說的話，也能列舉出幾個時光所賦予我們的美好事物，不過嘴角的紋路和松弛的皮膚不在此列。bestow upon: 贈與；bracket: v.（兩個東西）分別位于…的兩面，此處指長在嘴角的皺紋。
10. jowl: 面頰；undo: 破壞，擾亂。
11. 我們看到她們眼中蘊含了更多的憂傷，曾經年輕的眉宇間透露著更多的沉重。detect: 察覺，發現。
12. irrefutable: 無可辯駁的；endurance: 耐力，持久性。
13. intrigue: 引起……的興趣。
14. 早年對于自己個性的堅持——在胸前環抱著雙臂，分開站立的姿勢——現在已經變成了對彼此的依靠，獨立似乎已經不再是個重點。
15. limbs: 手腳，四肢。
16. clasp: 扣住，緊握；slung: 是sling的過去分詞，sling sth. over sth.: 把……搭在……上；solidarity: 團結。
17. cumulative: 累積的；dizzying: 令人激動的。
18. weigh in: 參加討論；collaborative: 合作的，協作的。
19. unanimous: 意見一致的；bow to: 順從。
20. angle to do sth.: 謀求做某事。
21. hover: 盤旋；palette: 主色調；huddle: 擠作一團；stay afloat: 維持下去。
22. trick sb. into doing: 欺騙某人做某事；intimacy: 親密。
23. reluctance: 不情愿；wary: 警惕的，小心翼翼的。
24. stance: 姿勢，姿態； angle of the jaw: 下頜角；downright: 徹底地，完全地；grudging: 不情愿的，勉強的。
25. 在照片中，尼克松運用了一個悖論：攝影作品中，隱私同樣也是主題。pull off: 努力實現。 26. 年復一年，直至最后的一個精彩鏡頭，她們的面龐和姿勢洋溢著成功的喜悅：“是的，我們留下的只是影像，這就是全部?！眘tunning: 極好的；triumphant: 得意洋洋的，成功的；shadowy: 模糊的，朦朧的。

（來源：英語學習雜志 編輯：丹妮）