To Hold On or To Let Go

Alice Lubin-Meyer

To Hold On or To Let Go is an exploration of my grandparents’ home, where my family has dwelled for over 50 years. I have had the privilege of photographing this place for as long as I have been making pictures. To me, the house has always seemed to have an essence of magic and creativity. At 20, after being away at school for a few months, I returned home and started photographing with a view camera. I had come back to be closer to my grandma. She received an Alzheimer's diagnosis, just a year or so after my grandpa had passed away. My grandparents were a pillar in my life, as was their home. It was a place of care, comfort, and love.

The qualities of the view camera allow me to create black-and-white photographs that are striking and complex. The camera’s manual nature forces me to slow down and really think about every exposure, demanding presence. The photographs represent the feelings I was experiencing. My own perception of my life as I knew it was becoming blurry. My caregivers were no longer able to give the same care, but the memories and the love were still so tangible. While taking the photographs, I could see myself in these spaces as a child or adolescent, with my grandma in the next room over, painting, cooking, writing, or telling stories with a friend.

As my grandma’s health declined, the home she inhabited was also crumbling. The reality of my grandparents’ life in poverty and poor health had become apparent, as did the need for my grandma to move to a care facility. Medicare had a lien on the home due to the extensive medical care my grandpa needed throughout his life. If neither of my grandparents resided in the home, it would be taken over by Medicare and ultimately torn down. This delayed my grandma’s move as my mom, her sole caregiver, contemplated how to proceed. The impending loss of our home and of Grandma left us feeling out of control.

All I could do during this time was document the house, spending time in each room and telling its story through photographs. In late April of 2025, my grandma finally moved into a memory care facility. After much effort by my family, Medicare released the lien in honor of the years my mom dedicated to caring for my grandma. Without my grandma in the home, my relationship to the space now feels completely different. With this change, I have begun photographing with color 120 film, staying outdoors, and using an observational, less immersive method of looking. I am simply documenting the process by which nature overtakes the home, a place that, like every home, contains multitudes of human subjectivity. My goal is to keep photographing the home and my family in this stage of life, processing the grief, and the emergence of new stories.