In a foreword to the new book, When Words Fail by Pamela Thomas-Graham, photographer and scholar Carla Williams writes:

When attorney and author Lawrence Graham died suddenly in 2021, his wife Pamela Thomas-Graham, also an accomplished writer, found herself unexpectedly without a language to express her grief. How could mere words convey the emptiness, anxiety and pain of losing one’s life partner without warning at such a young age? It’s a grief so overwhelming, so debilitating, that it seems only someone who’s experienced the same loss might comprehend its enormity. In search of a means to both communicate and process her grief, Pamela turned to my medium, photography. Traversing New York City with her camera, she chose twilight—that liminal space between day and night, waking and dreaming—during which to compose what would become her visual memorial.

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Pamela Thomas-Graham – “When Words Fail”
Published by Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg, 2024
Review by W. Scott Olsen

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When Words Fail is an extraordinary book. It is beautiful and touching and poignant, and it is the kind of book that has the power to re-see something as well-known and as well-photographed as New York City in a way that is personal and intimate, familiar and utterly fresh at the same time.

This is a surprising book. The images, all taken at twilight, are brilliant with warm oranges and yellows, cool blues. The images are sharp in a way that invites you to imagine there is no camera mediating the vision. Yes, it’s a cliché to say “I feel like I’m there.” But I’ve been there. This book is true.

This book is not the gritty New York, not the nostalgic New York, not the New York overlayed with agenda or examination. This book, instead, is a visual New York motivated by love. In one way, the book says this is where I would walk with my love, who is now gone. But Thomas-Graham went exploring, too.

In her own introduction, Thomas-Graham writes:

This book is the journal of my trek at dusk through New York City, roaming the streets like a fluttering moth in search of light. I went to neighborhoods I had never seen before. To places I was afraid to go. From glittering Midtown to the hush of a green space in Williamsburg; a West Village rooftop to a subway platform…

I discovered many things in my twilight journey, including a marvelous word: vespertine. From the Latin word Vesper, which means “evening,” vespertine refers to being active, flowering, or flourishing as night falls. For instance, a vespertine flower is one that blooms in the evening. Vespertine animals—such as bats and owls—are only active at dusk. Georg Willem Friedrich Hegel wrote that the emergence of owls each night means that reality has “completed its formative process.” Moments of uninhibited imagination can commence. And original thoughts can take flight.”

Flourishing as night falls—this is the hope Thomas-Graham implies is her own as she thinks about the passing of her husband.

When Words Fail is described as a way to articulate and process grief. Occasionally throughout the book, there are small bits of text, not explaining the photographs, but simply giving voice to the questions that inevitably come after the death of a partner.

“If you suddenly became untethered from the life you thought you’d be leading indefinitely,” one page begins, “would you move?”

Another one is a consideration of the Lower East Side.

“Like twilight,” the text reads, “the Lower East Side is not for the faint of heart. It takes our measure. It dares us to dream.”

our measure. It dares us to dream.”

Yet another considers the Bethesda statue in Central Park.

“Where should you go if you find yourself broken-hearted in New York City, grieving a loss, suffering from an illness—suffering in any way, really? Two words: Bethesda Fountain. You may find that it feels like a “thin place”: a location where the distance between heaven and earth collapses, the veil between the two becomes transparent, and people feel that they are in the presence of the divine…Go at any time of day and you will almost certainly feel restored after spending a few quiet moments there. For a peak impact, go at twilight.”

A good many photographers will describe their work as photographing emotion. I’m photographing happiness, they say. Or longing. Or despair. And while Thomas-Graham may be photographing loss, it’s a complicated and subtle and nuanced articulation. It’s indirect. There are no images (as far as I can tell) of her late husband. There is no distraught family. Instead, we have setting. We have setting, seen through memory and love. The grief, motivated by love, is how she decides what to frame and focus on.

Technically, every image in this collection is impressive. Twilight is emotionally evocative, yet photographically dynamic and ever changing. Composition, framing, and the use of warm and cool colors here are all deeply talented. There are wide angle shots and close-ups, technically difficult images such as a lone musician in the Bethesda Arcade, the neon of a cafe sign, the rendering of highlights when shooting from the street inside windows. There are silhouettes and rain and clear sky, too.

When Words Fail is filled with people in the extraordinary acts of everyday life. There are subway entrances, the Oculus, people in restaurants, people seen through the windows of their homes, pedestrians, and cabs in puddles. There are people walking near Washington Square, in a museum, or on some unidentified street. It doesn’t really matter.

When Words Fail is very much an environmental book in that what people there are tends to be at a remove. There are no close-up portraits, although there are plenty of people. What this means is the book is about the character of a place, much more than characters in a place. The book offers a particular vision of New York City that is, yes, indescribable in words. It’s a mood, an attitude, a way of seeing.

At the end of the book, she writes:

“How does the story end? Sometimes, I wish I knew. Other times, I’d rather be surprised.  Twilight creates a space for us to imagine the storyline we’re a part of.”

The photographs in When Words Fail are brilliant. The story is heart-touching and intimate. The book is about a personal way of seeing home, and that way of seeing will linger in your imagination for a long time.

A note from FRAMES: Please let us know if you have an upcoming or recently published photography book.