Aging leaves more space for meaning
The centenarians I photographed held in common a joy of life, wisdom and warmth of heart. They were curious, hospitable and showed a good sense of humor
Karsten Thormaehlen, photographer and author of Aging Gracefully, a collection of portraits of centenarians from all over the world
During my years at university, I shared a flat with a witty and generous dental technician. He had a big, frank smile and, being of a joyous nature, he took lightheartedly the nickname “The Bull” that a friend of mine, impressed by his mighty figure, blurted out. “The Bull” and I had inverted routines: while he left the house early in the morning, I spent the days on my books and worked in the evening at La Scala, where I was employed as an usherette. Sometimes, we met over breakfast or we talked about our day, before saying goodnight. It was during one of these occasional encounters that, while standing in front of the bathroom door, he candidly summarized: “Coincidences are like the islands. Remove the water and everything is connected.”
This episode comes to my mind now that, in the midst of a global lockdown, I had a chance to talk with Karsten Thormaehlen, the otherwise too-busy-for-a-chat German photographer and author of Aging Gracefully, a collection of portraits of centenarians from all over the world. It’s not just the luck of this long distance encounter that surprises me, it’s the perfect timing of a message embedded in our conversation. The idea that happiness, no matter what, is a choice we make. Of course, I’m not the first one to tap into the wisdom of the oldest old. As he told me, a German newspaper just got in contact with him for this same reason. Nonetheless, I feel particularly grateful for his recollections that come in handy in these dire weeks.
With his camera in hand, Karsten has reached a future that we can only imagine: a society made up of the oldest-old. According to the researchers, this will be the reality for half of the people born in the last decade in the seven most advanced economies. The chances that our children and grandchildren will be able to live well beyond the age of a hundred have never been higher. From Karsten’s account, it’s a dimension made of a different alchemy of things compared to what determines our choices in the everyday life. There’s less space for appearance and greed and more for meaningful connections, generosity and gratitude. The pace is slower and, even if the sight is not that sharp anymore, the things that matter have never been clearer. To a certain extent, it’s a perspective that can support us now while reality is slowing down and we are called to evaluate our list of priorities, to distinguish between our needs and wants.
From where does your interest in the oldest-old come?
I think that it’s because as a young boy I used to spent a lot of time with my grandparents, while my parents were at work. I mostly have good memories of this time. My grandparents made me feel special and some sort of talented. Later in life, instead of military service, I opted for community services. As a conscientious objector, I worked in a retirement home. Together with a social worker, I organized physical activities, play groups and excursions for the elderly. At the retirement home there was an assisted living section and also a care station for people in need of care, suffering from dementia in different stages. At that time, as a young photographer and future philosophy student, I was more interested in the downsides and sad aspects of aging.
How did you come up with the idea of photographing centenarians?
An image in a newspaper of a man who was celebrating his 100th birthday triggered me. The formal, esthetic and substantive quality didn’t correspond with the extraordinary achievement of becoming 100. The photograph was just the opposite of a graceful depiction. I decided I should try by myself to do better. My grandfather-in-law had just died at the age of 99 and I talked with my agent about the idea. Surprisingly, she told me that her grandmother had just turned 102. It took her a phone call to hire my first model. I booked a stylist and drove to her apartment where, together with one of her daughters, she was waiting for me with coffee and cake.
Is this how the book Aging Gracefully was born?
Not exactly. At first, I offered my pictures to some magazines, but they all turned the proposal down. Things changed when the magazine Der Spiegel published a story about centenarians and I shared my pictures with the author. We run an exhibition together at the Festival House Bregenz, in Austria. It was very impactful with pictures printed in 120 x 180 cm. More than 60 exhibitions in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, UK and Japan would follow in the next 12 years! The pictures then appeared in my first books Jahrhundertmensch (Centenarians, ed), published in 2008 and Mit 100 hat man noch Träume (Happy at 100, ed) in 2011. Aging Gracefully is my third book on the subject of centenarians and it was the idea of my US-publisher to continue the series with a cast of international centenarians.
How did you recruit them?
In Europe, I counted on word-of-mouth. I also found some of my models in Wikipedia and via social media, on Facebook and Instagram. In Japan, we run advertisements, where as in the US we asked the help of a professional producer. People are also sending me messages from all over the world. They see my work and ask me if I’d like to meet their 100-year-old relative. In total, I photographed over 150 people over 100. Yes, collectively it makes 15,000 years of personal histories.
Is there something of these encounters that came totally unexpected?
Each encounter was more or less planned, meaning I never met a centenarian accidentally in the street. I researched where to have a good chance in finding centenarians. Sometimes I was at facilities where I met another, a second and maybe a third centenarian, as it happened in Reykjavik, Iceland. Sometimes I didn’t meet anyone although the village on Okinawa Islands, Japan, was famous for having a high number of citizens that age.
Apart from being centenarians, what did the people you photographed hold in common?
A sense of enjoyment for life, wisdom, warmth of heart. They were curious, they wanted to know why I travelled so far just to take a picture of them. Also, their families or care aids were hospitable, they introduced me to them with some kind of pride. The centenarians themselves mostly showed a good sense of humor. I remember a woman who told me: “Since I noticed that my kids live in a retirement home, I have stopped to worry about them.” Another woman showed me an advertising that her son-in-law shared with her. It was a campaign for an optician who offered 1% off on a new pair of glasses for each year of the client.
Do you have a favorite portrait or story?
There are a few. I always like to mention the fact that the most normal person in life became the “superstar" of the project. Just like it happened with Erika (she’s the first woman on the left in the gallery below, ed). Born in 1910, during her adult life, she volunteered to care for people in need. Her image was printed on several international magazine covers (Du and Beobacher in Switzerland, Internazionale in Italy), business reports, catalogues and she was featured in Repubblica, Madame, Stern, The Guardian, Smithsonian, Süddeutsche Zeitung. Her portrait was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery in London and has won awards like a Gold Lion at the International Advertising Festival of Cannes. Even the Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad Yunnus after seeing her picture asked to meet with her, during a visit in Berlin. Like many other centenarians, Erika was sustained by her philosophy, a frugal approach to happiness. You can hear a lot of words to live by when you encounter people this old: you do not need much to be happy, accept people the way they are and maintain a mental outlook even in dire times.
You wrote: "I believe that light gives the portraits their magic and power." It's such a liberating point of view, especially considering how much older people are blackened-out in the media. Can you talk about the lights and shadows that you, as a photographer, notice in the representation of our aging population?
In a figurative sense you’re right! Talking about discouraged, depressed, poor or older people suffering from dementia, these are indeed almost invisible in the mass media and advertising industry. The other ones, the healthy, happy, rich and sporty people we likely see more and more, because they’re becoming the most attractive target group – by number, assets and purchasing power. We are a “performing society” and we tend to equate time with money. The companies are acknowledging this change, we need governments to step up and take better care of our aging population.
We are culturally trained not to see the beauty in aging. Do you have the same feeling?
“Beauty“ is not real, not objective, it’s not scientific, it’s a culturally defined term. It’s always subjective, depending on Zeitgeist and the individual eye of the beholder. Like the beauty of plus size models or tattoos. I’d rather like to use the word “esthetics.”
I think this is a really good point. In this case, are we trained to see the esthetics of aging or do we fail to catch it in our reality, because our exposure to this esthetics is very limited?
Actually I think these are two different things, like the comparison of apples and pears. “Beauty” and “esthetics” are as different as “art” and “artistry.” We’re not trained in so far that we often mix up “beauty” with “key stimuli,” this is our biological and evolutionary heritage. We judge by heart, personal taste and not by objective reasons.
In the world of fashion and advertising, I was often confronted with this problem: products will only sell if they promise qualities that are connected to youthful values! In the art world, instead, age doesn’t matter, neither among the artists themselves nor among their subjects of work, both are “ageless.”
Looking at your pictures, there's a particular kind of strength that emanates from these faces. The eyes of your models are full of curiosity and happiness. Nothing to do with the fragile image we envision for this age. Did you have the same feeling?You’re right, but the images, which have been published, were only one of over two hundred I took during a session with each protagonist. There are also sad, serious and weird expressions, but I picked the ones I thought transport exactly this kind of mood, which came closest to the character I thought I’ve met, which is the very nature of portrait photography.
I have the feeling that through these photo shootings you had a taste of the future that awaits us because of an increased longevity. How does it feel?
You get the feeling that you don’t have to fight each day for surviving. The centenarians I photographed were sustained by their values. They wanted to live longer, feel needed, be in good shape and make other people happy. They definitely had a different view on the world, it seems that the longer the life, the more importance is given to the meaning.
How has this experience changed the way you look at aging, now?
I started to see things differently. I feel more conscious, my interest in the “perennial questions“ has re-awakened and there’s less individualism in my choices.
