Brianna Capozzi’s portraits celebrate the power of sisterly bonds

Brianna Capozzi has spent her career documenting the complexities of women. One of the most sought-after fashion photographers working today, the New Yorker’s impressive body of work is underscored by a spontaneous kind of warmth, whereby celebrities like Pamela Anderson, Chloë Sevigny, and Selena Gomez are brought into the same intimate focus as her best friends and own family members. Balancing surreal staging and the everyday, her playful visual world is a place where women aren’t limited to being one thing, instead appearing in unruly shades of individuality, softness and power.

Six years in the making, Capozzi’s new book Sisters is the photographer’s most ambitious and personal project to date. It marks a follow up to Well Behaved Women, which was published by IDEA in 2018 as a loving exploration of femininity through fashion, humour and performance. In search of a subject more rooted in reality after it was published, Capozzi dug into her archive and discovered a forgotten portrait of sisters Tessa and Grace. Moved by the ease shared between the siblings in the image, it sparked an idea that would plunge the photographer deep into a rabbit hole, taking her across America to document a vast spectrum of ties shared between sisters, twins, and half-sisters in various stages of their lives.

Brought together across 140 pages, the resulting booking is a thing of rare beauty. In scenes alive with a deep familial closeness, siblings pile together on sofas, hang out in backyards, and let loose on the dancefloors of family parties. Capozzi wanted to challenge herself to break away from the stylised production of fashion imagery, instead opting to shoot the women nude or in minimal clothing and without any direction. The portraits have a vivid intimacy to them as a result, where breasts, baby bumps, and wrinkles exist unselfconsciously, and unique sisterly bonds are shown at their most raw.

Ahead of the book’s launch in New York, Capozzi speaks on the making of the project and her close relationship with her own sister, Gabrielle.

How did the idea for the book first come about?

Brianna Capozzi: In 2014, I took some Polaroids of Tessa and her sister Grace. Tessa wanted to interview me, and I asked if the sisters would pose for me in exchange. I wanted to test out a new camera at the time. I revisited these photos years later after I wrapped up my first book, Well Behaved Women.

I wanted something new, intimate, more based in reality, but something still celebrating women and my relationship to them. My sister had just had her first kid, my nephew Wade, and I was so inspired by her. She was going through this massive transition, an incredible thing to watch, and so it just felt fitting.

I know it was six years in the making. Can you talk a bit about the earliest shots and how the project grew?

Brianna Capozzi: Once I decided to focus on sisters, I asked two of my closest friends first. The two shoots were totally different. One shoot was the cover photo of Sabrina and Caroline. I had shot them in the past together while Caroline was pregnant, and this time it was Sabrina [who was pregnant].

I went over with one black balloon, a 6-foot canvas on which Caroline outlined Sabrina’s pregnant body and some porcelain clay, which we laid over Sabrina’s belly. Only the balloon shot made it in. I abandoned the canvas in a church parking lot a few months later in an emergency situation – but that's a story for another day!

The other early shoot was of Emma Wyman and her sisters Jenna and Siena. Siena, who was only 11 at the time, was singing Wide Open Spaces by The Chicks at a karaoke fashion event at PS1, and I brought a camera with me backstage. For a long time I didn’t think Emma’s images would work because they are unlike my other shoots – beyond unplanned with almost no control. But as I played with the edit they informed this idea that with a focused subject matter, the image-making style could be really broad.

I know you debated including close friendships between women and decided in the end to focus on biological sisters. Why is that?

Brianna Capozzi: As I shot each early set of sisters, I noticed the nuance and difference from friendships. There were wider age gaps, more likeness in appearance and mannerisms, but also less likeness in other ways. You choose your friends, and often you live similar lives to them. [With sisters], guards were down fully in this very natural way.

Some of the subjects are people you know, and others you found through Instagram and other interesting places, like a twin festival in Ohio. What was your approach to casting for this project?

Brianna Capozzi: You know, I could have worked on this book for decades. I meet sisters everywhere. I went up to a lot of strangers asking, ‘Do you have a sister?’ Their response was always something like, ‘Do I look like someone you know?’ A lot of the women in the book are my close friends. I almost always start there, close to home, but I cast my net all over. My hope is to portray that sisterhood is a universal experience.

I made a lot of posts on different casting sites. I would find people while I was travelling and ask to shoot them on the spot. One group of eight biological sisters I found through the hashtag #8sisters and flew to San Francisco to shoot them. I also flew one of them in from Hawaii and they had not all been together in the same room in over a decade. I spoke to hundreds of sets of sisters. In my dreams, I keep going forever.

“I could have worked on this book for decades... I spoke to hundreds of sets of sisters. In my dreams, I keep going forever” – Brianna Capozzi

Who are some of your favourite characters you met in the process of making the book?

Brianna Capozzi: Oh, so so many! But I would say that being around older sisters was incredibly moving. Janice and Harriet, Geneva and Phyllis, Jean and Janet. Their stories and their dynamics were almost childlike when they were together. It's like how when you go back home to be with your family, no matter how old you are, you feel a bit like a kid again. When these women were together it’s like I could feel all the years and memories they shared embodied in their dynamic, and in some ways they could have been standing in front of me as teens.

A lot of the pictures are nude. Can you talk about your approach to capturing the female body in the book?

Brianna Capozzi: Fashion and clothing has always played a huge role in my image-making, however I had just finished a book filled with styling and archival designer clothing. I knew for this I wanted to start neutral and nude, if the women were open to it, in order to not impose a sense of style onto anyone. When someone did want clothing, I went back and forth through different ideas of dress to understand what they would wear. It was pretty collaborative with each individual person what they were drawn to wearing, or not wearing.

I love the portrait of you and your sister in the book, where Gabrielle is pregnant. Why did you feel it was important to put your own family in the book?

Brianna Capozzi: That photo was taken in 2021. My sister is pregnant with my niece, Emily. This project is very personal and my sister was a huge inspiration for the book. I had a lot of sisters around me growing up. My mother is a sister, my cousins are sisters.

Although I was inspired by seeing Grace and Tessa’s images again, I would never have been drawn to the subject of sisterhood if it wasn’t so monumentally important to me personally. I wanted to honour that and my relationship [to Gabrielle], as without it there would be no book or series. Also I love shooting my family. I spent many years shooting my mother, and I’ve had both my grandmothers in editorials, but I had never shot my sister until this project. It’s special to be able to work with my family and create a new dynamic in our relationship.

Did working on the project teach you anything new about sisterly ties?

Brianna Capozzi: It showed me a lot of beauty in all the different kinds of dynamics I got to witness, and that closeness can last a lifetime. It also emphasised that not all sisters are so lucky, some struggle with jealousy, others become estranged. It made me feel extremely blessed for my relationship with Gabrielle.

What was the most challenging thing about this project?

Brianna Capozzi: Letting go of micromanaging and pre-planning. Normally, I show up to a shoot with a solid plan, looks, props, a moodboard of poses, hair and make-up references, a location specifically chosen by me. This process was different, as I had none of these things. I struggled to feel at ease before many shoots [for the book] up until the last year of shooting.

And the most rewarding?

Brianna Capozzi: Besides the experience and time spent with the women, it was learning to trust myself. Knowing that I could show up and take an incredible image with these women under any circumstance with as much or as little as we had at our disposal. The women themselves were so striking and powerful – nothing else was really needed.

Sisters by Brianna Capozzi is published by IDEA and launches at Dover Street Market New York on Wednesday, September 11.