Remote Portraits of People Living with the Alzheimer’s gene for New York Magazine

Behind-the-scenes of the remote process, mood board, and outtakes.

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Remote photography is one of the most powerful processes available today, but only a few photographers are using it, and few editors request it. It had a boom during the pandemic but almost died out when the world opened up again. When AI came along, remote photography, which seemed for a brief moment to be a harbinger of the future, got relegated to the Covid past and was all but forgotten. My guess is that not enough people were practicing it, and the possibilities of the process remained a mystery. Which is a pity, because I still think that remote photography is the way of the future.

In the last year, I got to do several big virtual projects that were initially requested as traditional portraiture but, because of logistics — the subjects were spread around the world and the timing was tight — ended up as remote portfolios. One was a story for the New York Times Magazine about people who arranged to send their ashes to space after death, and were photographed in locations from Madagascar to LA to Canada. The most recent shoot is a portfolio for New York Magazine (in print now) with the story by Amelia Schonbek, on people who have taken the 23andMe test and found out they have two copies of the Alzheimer’s gene, all but guaranteeing an onset of the disease.

Jake Petersen, 33, LA. “I consider myself extremely lucky and extremely pleased that I found this out. Alzheimer’s is something that’s starting in my brain now. The plaque — these buildups are happening in my 30s, right? I want to change these odds as much as possible. I’m optimistic, but I hear this clock ticking in the back of my head.”

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Initially, Jody Quan, the photo director of NYMag, asked if I could fly out to LA to photograph a few of the subjects based there, but we ended up settling on doing the project remotely, saving both the flying costs and time required for the portfolio. There is another hidden advantage to remote portraits that only becomes apparent after doing many of these — the portraits are often more intimate than when the photographer is present. The absence of a stranger invading personal space with a big camera creates a less threatening environment. The subjects are confronted only with a smartphone, often held by a relative or a friend, putting them at ease and making it possible to forget about the (virtual) presence of the photographer. The remote process itself provokes curiosity and bemusement, allowing for focused expressions, which I am often struggling to get with regular portraiture. Such a combination of intimacy and engagement turned out to be a perfect mix for this sensitive story of individuals confronted by their own mortality.

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I always make a mood board for remote shoots, both to focus my own vision and as a reference to send to the assistant and my editor. The mood board is really just that — a mood setter. It is not meant as an exact blueprint but as visual and emotional inspiration. For this project, I thought of Modigliani’s pensive women with their necks tilted to express psychological tension and of Francis Bacon’s fractured portrayals of anonymous individuals. The mood board gave me an idea of the palette, colorful but muted, with deep greens and purples broken by splashes of gelled light.

Jane Kramer, 58, Scarsdale. “When this all happened, that made me go, Uh-oh, I am screwed. These are two first-degree relatives now. When I got the genetic results, I 100 percent freaked out. I became mentally fatalistic, was drinking more. I have always been quite healthy in my life, and I thought, Oh, I’m ruining things.”

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The editing process was hard. Danielle Walsh (my editor for the project) and I went back and forth through several versions of the portraits, deciding which is more poignant and effective. We ended up picking close-ups that had an intense eye contact with the viewer.

This was the published image of Brett Memsic.

Brett Memsic, 39, LA. “My fiancée and I had a conversation where I broke down a bit because it’s like, “This affects you a lot, too.” We’re getting married in October. Later, I mentioned my APOE4 status to one friend and he joked that my fiancée still has a couple months to upgrade to a better model.”

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But the outtake, which didn’t fit as well with the other close-up portraits, is probably my favorite portrait from the shoot.

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Donna Dorans, 70, Massachusetts. “My biggest fear is that it’s going to start soon. There’s times when I think, Oh, is this it? But so far, it hasn’t yet that I know of.”

BTS of Donna using Shutter App.

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Another hard editing choice was a portrait of Miguel. This was the published image.

Miguel Delgado, 30, LA. “My mother’s a very religious person. I don’t know if she believes in genetic predisposition. I’m sure she does to some degree, but I feel she’s much more of a “Maybe we can pray and make sure we don’t carry them” kind of thing. It’s just that talking about death is taboo in a way; it seems like you’re speaking it into existence.”

And the outtake.

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In a weird snafu, when the remote portfolio was published in New York Magazine, my name got mixed up with another photographer, and the portfolio got published under someone else’s name. I was slightly upset but more bemused, since this seemed like an absurd but fitting error for the story on forgetting and confusion.

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When You Know You Might Forget Everything Living with the Alzheimer’s gene, by Amelia Schonbek. - NYMAG

Behind the Scenes of Remote Portraits Photographed for The New York Time Magazine's Space Issue - In THE FLASH Substack

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