»Stop time. I want you here forever. Never grow up. Never leave.«

I need a kiss before they leave is an emotional family portrait, filled with immense joy, but also with a disturbing realization of a wonderfulness that cannot be stored. It reflects upon a human desire to freeze time, to forever savoring those moments which are destined to live on only as distant memories.

Photography is of course the artistic technique to actually freeze time and to store a split second forever. In this book, Norwegian photographer Mathilde Helene Pettersen captures an entire parenthood, with all its bright and dark moments. I need a kiss before they leave reflects on becoming and being a mother, on building a family, on the immediate and unpredictable, on strengths and fragilities in life, and sometimes on the overshadowing fear of death and the irreversible.

Hardcover
17 x 23 cm112 
pages101 
English
ISBN 978-3-86828-963-32019
Texts: Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger
Design: Kehrer Design (July Mollik)