Some photobooks are built around a concept. Others are built around emotion.
Seasons of Time by
Nathalie Rubens belongs to the second category — a deeply personal and emotionally intelligent body of work that explores the fragile, often unspoken space between motherhood, aging, and the shifting nature of selfhood.
What moved me most while looking through this book was the way Rubens places two transformations side by side: her daughter Ruby entering adulthood, and herself entering a new phase of womanhood shaped by menopause, change, and the growing consciousness of time. The dialogue between these experiences gives the project its emotional force. One woman is discovering herself while the other is trying to redefine herself beyond the role that shaped her for so many years. One is moving outward into independence, the other is learning to live with a shifting sense of self.
Rubens photographs both herself and her daughter with sensitivity and honesty. There is nothing staged or overly controlled in the way she looks at them. What gives the work its depth is that she does not avoid the more difficult parts of aging — uncertainty, loneliness, and the feeling of slowly becoming less visible in a world that often values youth above all else. Still, the images never feel heavy or defeated. They remain open, direct, and deeply sincere.
What is especially striking is the way she photographs her own body. There is no attempt to soften or idealize it. She shows herself as she is, with a kind of calm acceptance that feels rare. In doing so, she resists the usual pressure placed on women to remain unchanged by time. The strength of these images lies in their simplicity and their refusal to pretend.
There is a quiet tension throughout the book between fragility and strength. Adolescence and midlife are shown as parallel experiences rather than opposites — both marked by instability, emotional exposure, and transformation. Seen together, mother and daughter reflect each other in unexpected ways, creating a sense of continuity across generations.
The landscapes deepen this feeling. Seasonal shifts, bare trees, changing light, and quiet natural spaces form a visual rhythm that structures the book. They mark the movement of time — summer, autumn, winter, spring — and separate the more intimate portraits. The repeated presence of two trees standing side by side gently mirrors the relationship between Nathalie and Ruby: distinct lives growing in parallel, connected through time.
The structure of the book is carefully considered. The personal photographs — portraits of mother or daughter — are placed on full pages, giving each moment space to exist on its own. Between them, the seasonal images act almost like visual chapters, creating pauses and allowing the emotional weight of the portraits to settle before moving forward.
The restraint of the work is something I also appreciated. Seasons of Time never tries to explain itself too much or guide the viewer toward a single conclusion. It leaves space for interpretation and memory. As I moved through the pages, I found myself thinking less about the photographs alone and more about time itself — how it quietly reshapes relationships in ways that are often subtle and difficult to name.
The accompanying reflections add another layer, especially the idea that society tends to celebrate the arrival of young womanhood while overlooking the equally profound transition into midlife. Rubens gives that experience visibility without dramatizing it. She simply shows it as part of life.
This book speaks to me in a very personal way because I am also an aging woman with a daughter. That perspective made the work feel even closer, almost familiar at times. It made me think about my own relationship with time, and about how quietly both daughters and mothers are changing simultaneously, even when it is not always visible.
Few photobooks manage to feel this intimate while still resonating on a wider level. Seasons of Time is not only about one family. It is about the cycles women move through, the identities we let go of and rebuild, and the emotional shifts that happen inside families over time.
It is a thoughtful and deeply human book — one that understands aging not as an ending, but as another way of seeing.
