Remember Me

For 17-years Preston Gannaway has been photographing a boy called EJ following the death of his mother. Her new book, Remember Me is about becoming and the passage of time, while exploring themes of mortality, loss and masculinity.

Gannaway was working as a young photojournalist at the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire when she was assigned in 2006 to work on a story focusing on a family—the St. Pierres—in which the mother, Carolynne, was dying of liver cancer. During afternoons when the kids were at school and Rich, the father was at work, it was Carolynne to whom Gannaway became closest. ‘It came to me only later — and I still have to remind myself of this in the frequent rush to get things done — how crucial this time was. Time not making pictures is just as important as time making them. One depends on the other.’After Carolynne’s passing, Gannaway stayed in touch with the family. EJ—Carolynne and Rich’s youngest son who had been four-years old when Carolynne died —became the focus of the project.. EJ first appears as a small boy and is shown navigating his way to adulthood. Images of everyday details, landscapes and portraits collectively create a longitudinal essay on the impermanence of the human experience. The project is still ongoing.