Halfway portraits: the photographer who explores the similarities between family, friends and couples by combining their faces in a single photo

RAM – Half portraits is the Photographic project by Marcella Marrarographics, web designer and photographer of Sicilian origins, which explores the similarities between the faces of relatives, friends and couples. By approaching portraits of nearby people, Marcella creates images that reveal deep and thin bonds, highlighting an intimate connection between physical traits and shared experiences.

The project was born almost by chance when, looking for similarities between his features and those of his father, the photographer began to support some photos, as if to identify the evidence of their -indissoluble bond -. This research led it to reflect on the meaning and effect of the similarities between parents and children, a bond that can be as reassuring as it is destabilizing.

Continuing in the exploration of this fascinating theme, Marcella discovered that the similarities do not concern only physiognomy, but extend to attitudes: the way of smiling, to keep their heads, to take a certain posture. Sometimes these traits are hereditary, other times they seem to be transmitted by a sort of family “memory”, a combination of genetics and shared behaviors.

With the passage of time what had started as a personal curiosity has thus transformed into a far more significant project, which attracted the attention of more and more people, eager to get their “portrait in the middle”.

Strada doing Marcella noticed a further peculiarity: the similarities do not concern only family members, but also friends, colleagues and life companions. And each time the combination of the two half proves to be a surprise, especially when the two subjects do not resemble each other at all, but supported in the photos show unexpected correspondences.

RAM – Half portraits acquired such success that, in October 2023, an important manifestation of children in Cagliari was presented at the Tuttori Festival, where Marcella had the honor of portraying about 400 people.

Here is a series of half portraits that immortalize mothers and children.

Here, however, the protagonists are brother and sister.

And what about friends?!

Father and son …

SOURCE: Half portraits