IN THE
PRIME
Community, Generation,
and Paradox at the Crux of Life
In the years farthest from birth and death, there's an unexpected paradox—a seeming physical stasis during a time of drastic internal growth.
Tracking his own community throughout their thirties in more than 400 portraits, Sam Comenoffers a generation's insights into fateful decisions we all make In The Prime of life.
ABOUT
IN THE PRIME
Veronica | Age 28
Veronica | Age 38
During our late twenties and throughout our thirties, we experience a prime of life. It's certainly not our only high point or transformative period. But it is the span where most of us dig deep, trying to figure out what we want and how to get there. We experience yearnings to do and to build, to create a family or career or both, to elevate our standard of living, to contribute, to find purpose or a path that makes sense to us. Our bodies and faces often appear ageless during that span, but inside we churn with life’s most consequential transformations.
This project tracks a community over a dozen years through repeated annual sittings with each individual. More than 400 portraits document the subjects between age 28 and age 40 to examine this specific slice of lifespan when we face momentous, self-actualizing decisions—realizing the work and relationships that define us.
The community’s contraction, expansion, and evolution is in focus too, as life’s arc progresses through the point furthest from both birth and death.
For this cohort of “Xennials,” primetime began in crisis with the Great Recession of 2008 and is coming to a challenging close with the COVID-19 pandemic, implacable dominance of social media, and this make-or-break 2020 Presidential election. Cultural shifts that have rocked these lives are matched only by the monumental changes within each of them.
THIS SITE OFFERS A DISTILLATION OF
12 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
402 PHOTOGRAPHS
COMPRISE THE PROJECT TO DATE
