The Distance Between Us

by Christopher Capozziello

Sharing this story was not something that Christopher Capozziello ever set out to do, but, over the years, one picture has led to another and a story has emerged. Capozziello says, "The time I have spent with my brother, looking through my camera, has forced me to ask questions about suffering and faith and why anyone is born with disability. Nick has cerebral palsy. Taking pictures has been a way for me to deal with the reality of having a twin brother who struggles through life in ways that I do not." Capozziello's photographs take us on a journey through his worries and inquiries, ending his debut book with a different sort of question: what comes next? Part two of the book is a journey he and his brother take across the United States. The work has been shown throughout the United States and has won 33 national and international awards.

Exceptional photographic work about a very difficult and highly emotional situation: one brother portraying his twin - one an excellent photojournalist, the other suffering from cerebral palsy. Presents outstanding photographic work that has won 33 national and international awards. This series of photographs has been exhibited throughout the United States and at the LUMIX Festival in Hannover, Germany. A must-have for photography enthusiasts.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 30, 2013

Reviews

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Capozziello is a photographer by trade and a twin by birth, and in The Distance Between Us he explores the midpoint of that Venn Diagram. His brother, Nick, has cerebral palsy, and that has shaped the way Nick lives his life and the way Capozziello views his.

I've felt ashamed most of my life. Ashamed at how people look at me in connection to him. Ashamed that I have what he can't—the ability to carry on a decent conversation, to go to college, to follow my dreams, to have a career, to drive a car, to defend myself, to move our of our parent's [sic] house. Meanwhile, he sits in that room of his, alone everyday [sic] in the room we grew up in, in the room that seems, to me, at least, more like a prison than a bedroom—a place where he is being punished for something in which he had no choice. (76)

It's a really thoughtful book. Capozziello captures Nick in hard moments and happy ones. He talks fairly extensively about some of the physical problems that cerebral palsy creates for Nick (in particular, debilitating cramps) but leaves the intellectual challenges more between the lines, and he talks about the guilt he's felt for being the twin who made it out without any of those problems.

"Maybe you're not really believing that God will heal your brother," one church elder told me. "Maybe that's why he's not healed." The last thing I need is more guilt. But if God made all this, couldn't God relax his own rules and just heal my brother? (55)

Capozziello moves in the book from these difficulties to a forward-looking cross-country road trip with his brother, giving Nick the last word through photos and comments of his own...but my favourite photo is one that Capozziello took himself, of Nick smiling, not looking directly at the camera, holding a camera of his own (156).

I had a tough time tracking this one down, which is a pity—I think there's a place for it in a lot more libraries.