In Almost Every Picture #4

Each book in Erik Kessels’s series of vintage photography portfolios highlights the work of an unknown amateur, often one obsessively revisiting a single subject In Almost Every Picture. The first edition collected a dozen years of vacation photographs taken by a husband of his wife, which were bought at a flea market in Spain. (The editor’s offer to return them to any confirmed relative of the subject stands.) This latest collection stars a pair of twin sisters, fraternal but meticulously identically styled—in dresses, coats, belts, shoes, pocketbooks, gloves and often hairdos—and proud of the relationship they have dressed up to display. The setting is Barcelona during World War II and the knowledge that an immense tragedy is unfolding nearby intensifies the preciousness of their joy, until tragedy invades that too. In the last pages, one sister poses alone, off-center, as if to save a place for her other half. Readers can only wonder what has changed.