Special Photos For Special Relations: Tina Barney

It is always a pleasure discover special things. This week-end I was lucky to get to know the work of american photographer Tina Barney.
Tina Barney, who currently lives in Rhode Island, was born in 1945 in New York. Having the benefit of growing up in a healthy family, she started with photography at the age of 26. Barney is known for portraying people of the "upper class" in colourful pictures. Her main interest is to visualise traditional family relations and social role models. Her photos can be considered as a sociological study in pictures.
Accidently I came accross her photography book "Theatre Of Manners" because the title attracted my attention.
The book is a documentation relationships of her family and close friends shot in everyday situations, private parties and celebrations.
Barney's photos are authentic and beautyful as well as brutally honest. Therewith, she provides an intimidate view into her privace which characterises her photographs and makes her stand out of the range from many other photographers.

"When people say that there is a distance, a stiffness in my photographs, that the people look like they do not connect, my answer is, that this is the best that we can do. This inability to show physical affection is in our heritage."
— Tina Barney

This quote is brutal and honest as her photographs itsself. How much more straight to the point could she describe her work?

Her work is exposed at the following venues:
George Eastman House in Rochester, New York
Yale University Art Gallery New Haven, Connecticut
Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Museum of Modern Art New York