Isadora Kosofsky is a Los Angeles-based documentary photographer and filmmaker. She received the 2012 Inge Morath Award from the Magnum Foundation for ‘The Three: Senior Love Triangle’ and ‘This Existence.’
She was a participant in the 2014 Joop Swart Masterclass of World Press Photo. She is the recipient of a 2015 Flash Forward Magenta Foundation Award and a 2015 Commended Award from the Ian Parry Foundation. Her projects have received distinctions from Women in Photography International, Prix de la Photographie Paris, and The New York Photo Festival. Isadora’s work has been featured in The London Sunday Times, Slate, The Washington Post, TIME, Le Monde, American Photo, VICE, NationSwell, Mashable, PDN, The British Journal of Photography, The Huffington Post and The New Yorker Photo Booth, among others.
Her long-term photo essay about the lives and incarcerations of two young brothers entitled ‘Vinny and David: Life and Incarceration of a Family’ is featured in the Thames and Hudsons’ anthology Family Photography Now and Public Private Portraiture of Mossless.
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About ‘The Three: Senior Love Triangle’:
‘The Three: Senior Love Triangle’ documents Jeanie, 82, Will, 84, and Adina, 90, individuals bound by their relationship. They view their connection as a shield from the loneliness of aging. Even though Jeanie, Will, and Adina’s relationship began at a senior care facility, the outside world is more like home. For them, the care center is a reminder of solitude. Attempting to find solace within themselves, they seek to escape with each other. In describing their romantic bond, Will shares, ‘We live above the law. Not outside the law, but above the law. We are not outlaws.’ Through their relationship, Jean, Will, and Adina challenge socio-cultural norms projected about the elderly. Jeanie, reflecting on her life, confides, ‘I do not wish to assume all the garments of maturity.’ Through this relationship, they seek to fulfill desires left unmet. Jeanie seeks empowerment, reiterating, ‘I want to be free.’ For many of my elderly subjects, aging is often paradoxically a form of both loss and liberation.
This long-term photo essay attempts to examine intimacy, sexuality, companionship and loneliness through the lives of these three individuals. Some assume I chose to befriend Jeanie, Will, and Adina because they appear unconventional; but, in fact, I recognize a part of myself in each individual. When I shadow their daily life, I feel I am engaging in the questionable activity, in something different. Each day we searched for a new ‘adventure,’ a purpose. I felt the comfort of being part of the group. But the thrill revealed sadness. I, too, experienced the remoteness that one can feel even when part of the group, or pair. I felt the ache that dwelled just below the surface of their romanticism. Speaking in response to their love triangle, Jeanie says, ‘To share Will is a thorn in your side… A relationship between a man and a woman is private. It’s a couple, not a trio.’
