Fake Family Portraits Starring Perfect Strangers

By Tyler Coates

June 25, 2013

Photographer Jamie Diamond takes family portraits. But these aren’t the kind you may find hanging in the dens of your parents’ friends’ houses — although they certainly look similar. Diamond stages his portraits with complete strangers, all models who he invites to rented hotel rooms to pose as loving families. “I am interested in the shifting paradigm of the traditional family structure and in the paradox of the familiar,” Diamond says of his project (spotted via Feature Shoot) “The portraits are of actual people being themselves in an entirely new context; they intuitively follow the rules of the genre and the group they form for the camera ascribes them an identity.” His series demonstrates the power of familiar poses as well as the photographer’s lens in constructing a recognizable narrative. Check out the photos after the jump, and visit Diamond’s website for more of his work.

Photo credit: Jamie Diamond