Critical Review of the Introduction/ Essay to Elinor Carucci's Closer - Mike Bennett

The introduction to Closer by Elinor Carrucci is a kind of justification of the photographs themselves, and partly a biography of herself and of the images contained in the book. Seven paragraphs long, it, along with the book, tends to predominantly fixate on her mother and her mothers presence.
Explaining how the camera both helps her to maintain a  distance yet document a closeness, and how the process brought in her extended family, father, brother, lover, and how zooming in specific details made the the images more universal, and how she has now two different memories of these situations, the real but fading memory and the photographic version, frozen in time.

Nataly and I, Carrucci, E, Closer, 2001, Chronicle Books

One cant but help but be amused by her idea that this is a normal family with normal levels of intimacy, when it could be easily argued that her entire fame comes from the unusual amount of either closeness or familial nudity on display, all by a group of very attractive people which presumably has in no way hindered her cause either.
Despite that, the essay, co-written with Gadi Taub, is an insightful piece, clearly carefully considered,
and helping us to see her view of her own work and her view of the world. She obviously is devoted to both photography and to her family, using one to see herself through the other and vice versa.
In many ways, the text is a reflection of the imagery, allowing you to look inside her particular family politik.

Carruci, E, Closer, 2001, Chronicle Books