Aged Faces

Ulmann had a fascination with the documentation of wrinkled and weathered faces, wanting to represent not only individuals from different ethnic backgrounds, but from different age groups as well. She was fascinated by the physical attributes of growing older, and seeing how these physical differences translated through photogrpahy.

She wanted to commemorate the lives lived by those of past generations; Ulmann’s goal was to capture with her photographs the evidence of a long life well lived. She is even quoted as saying she was interested in the idea of “A face that has the marks of having lived intensely”. Through this, Ulmann was able to document not only the lives of Appalachian people; but she also captured the value of their lifestyles and the richness of their traditions.

Here is an assortment of other images in which Ulmann captured the physical representations of age.