‘Trying to stop time’: One man’s love letter to his wife – in pictures

Marion and daughter Pia

Photographer Christopher Anderson’s new book, Marion, is a love letter to his wife. It marks the closing chapter of a trilogy of books that chronicles their lives, and loves, in beautiful depth over the course of their partnership. It follows Son (about Atlas, Christopher’s son) and Pia (about Christopher’s daughter). Marion is published through Stanley Barker All photographs: Christopher Anderson

Marion measuring material for curtains in our new apartment in Paris

Anderson began photographing his family in a completely organic way. His images were simply the natural action of a partner trying to stop time, and not let one moment of his relationships slip by

Anderson says: ‘This was our first real holiday together. It was around 2002 and we are on a ferry in Croatia. She just looked fabulous standing there. I remember making this picture like it was yesterday’

‘Ski holiday in Italy. Shabby Airbnb with a fold out couch/bed. I have a lot of pictures of Marion in the morning’

‘I don’t usually stage Marion in situations but this is one of the times I did. I brought her flowers on her birthday. She was dressed in white, which is what probably compelled me more than anything. In her face there is no joy or gratitude although she was happy about them. But in the picture, I just thought it was funny that her face registers as almost indifferent’

Painted racing pigeons

‘We lived for a short time in Barcelona. Near the kids’ school, someone kept these hand-painted birds that were used for some sort of race. Some days when I would pick up the kids from school, they would be circling overhead. It always seemed like some sort of metaphor or omen. For what, I’m not sure’

Pia and Marion

Anderson had never thought of his personal photographs as ‘work’ until fellow photographer Tim Hetherington saw an image Anderson had made of Marion and said, ‘this is about the passing of time’. Anderson began to see his personal images in a new light and, over time, would come to feel that these photographs were, in fact, his life’s work

‘It was never some sort of creative exercise. The photographs are expressions of love … a record of that expression. They are more than memories’

Holiday in Italy

‘The beach was made of these little pebbles. Pia and Marion were burying each other and laughing at the result. I was lying on my back and thinking how the sky was impossibly blue’

Aperitif. Holiday by the sea

‘A boy from Texas still can’t believe it’s real’

‘I had just returned from China and I brought everyone silk pyjamas or robes. Mornings in our Brooklyn apartment always had the sunrise’

‘This is a view of Manhattan from Brooklyn. I will never, ever get over the view. It is the view of the years of starting the family. And the first view I can ever remember wanting to stay home for’

‘Our apartment in Brooklyn was on the eighth floor and faced directly west. We would get these incredible sunrises with impossible orange light. This was fortuitous for the breakfast pictures’

Marion and Atlas in hotel room

‘I was working in Tokyo and it was a rare occasion to bring the family along. We made it a point of spending one night in one of those skyscraper hotels to have the full Lost in Translation experience. Marion was reading in the morning with Atlas, our son. The photograph I made of the two of them is in one of the other books. It seemed like a nice insider reference to include this version in the Marion book’