A collection of personal images focusing on matriarchal dynamics and the ways we are shaped by loss. Los Angeles-based photographer Kaitlin Maxwell was raised in South Florida and experienced the passing of her father at a young age. Photography has been a way for Maxwell to navigate the world, find meaning and a sense of identity. Using natural light and a medium format film camera, Maxwell’s practice is an intimate study of the human condition, rooted in a desire to understand what it means to be seen. It also acts as a window into her own life as she searches for connection. What began as an attempt to grasp the complexities of her relationship with her mother and grandmother, has evolved into a decade long meditation on memory, performance, and loss. Here Maxwell photographs “what was once inaccessibile.” Each photograph is a study in absence, where presence lies within what we don’t see. The women depicted no longer exist, with the images serving as relics of past versions of themselves:

“These photographs are collaborations grounded in vulnerability, and each image leads me back to where I began, searching for connection…. The loss of my grandfather in 2021 felt like a closing bracket, the death of two important male figures bookending a body of work centered on women. In the wake of his passing, a transformation occurred in my mother. The woman who was once the subject of my gaze, became a mirror. I saw her in the same search I was undertaking, a daughter looking for her father.”

Kaitlin Maxwell participated in our 2025 Booooooom Art & Photo Book Award and made our shortlist.