It was this huge historical event, but on a very micro level, it also shaped my relationship with my wife and children.” Chronograph is a photography book that runs from those terrorist attacks to the present day, tracing the journey of Haymes’s two sons, Philipp and Lawrence, as they grow from drooling babies into young men. We are given a ringside seat as arms get broken, beloved pets die and hairs start sprouting from armpits. The mundane side of life – verrucas, messy kitchens, Lina cleaning out an ear with a cotton bud – is captured in the same way as birthday parties and rites of passage.
It was a funny balance because the camera was always around, but it seemed to work.” There are also multiple shots of the boys naked – not just running around the house as young children but as they transition into adulthood too. I suspect most teenagers would not be cool with this, but Haymes insists he had their approval. That was just a part of our daily life.” Besides, when Philipp and Lawrence reach their teens – all bleached hair, tattoos and stubble – they work out an ingenious method of rebellion.
Instead of sulking or turning away from the camera, Haymes says his kids smiled and put their thumbs up, knowing that the last thing their dad wanted was a posed family portrait. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Haymes hoped to study art but ended up dropping out. After couch-surfing in London for a bit, he found work in a photo studio, eventually assisting Jürgen Teller.
In 1999, he packed two cameras into a bag and decided to try his luck in New York. It was here he met Lina, a Jewish refugee who, as a teenager, had moved to the US with her parents from Ukraine – then part of the Soviet Union. She was working on a magazine and gave him a commission that allowed him to get a visa and stay.
Haymes’s own difficult transition from youth to adulthood is perhaps what draws him to his subjects. Between Dog and Wolf captured his road trips across California and Oklahoma with a group of young skateboarders. Follow-up Gabe TM unfurled over many years hanging out with Gabe Nevins, the teenage star of Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park.
Unexpectedly, Haymes found himself chronicling Nevins’s homelessness and addiction in the wake of making the movie. Dancing on the Fault Line, published in 2024, was another mammoth excursion, following teenager Love Bailey and her extended queer family right up to her decision to transition in her 30s. Haymes is still in touch with his previous subjects: he shot Bailey’s wedding; Gabe is living a “normal life” now in Oregon; the skaters have children of their own.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
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