ONE OF my Tumblr crew posted an image from a recent ad campaign.
The photo didn’t have a caption, you had to travel to the source site to see what it was actually selling. And there, I found a series. Here are a couple more:
What’s most striking about this campaign, shot by photographer, Tom Hussey, is that it conveys in such simplicity the distance between who we were and what we become as well as the sense of who we hope/hoped to be. It’s such an complex telescoping of time and emotion.
These moments become even more striking once you realize that the images are selling Alzheimer’s medication. From the site:
Commercial advertising photographer Tom Hussey photographed an award winning campaign for Novartis’ Exelon Patch, a prescription medicine for the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s dementia. The highly conceptual photographs depicted an older person looking at the reflection of their younger self in a mirror.
These “reflections,” in their quiet simplicity, speak worlds about the path we travel, the dreams and the destinations, and what it might mean to be robbed of those bits and pieces that made us who we are.
The rest, here:
native to the place 
From a point of media and photography the images and the marketing campaign are both very impressive. At present my mother-in-law, who just turned 90, is in the last stage of Alzheimer’s. For me, the horrific reality of this illness is in such sharp contrast to the “constructed reality” and implied “values, beliefs, & ideologies” of these images, that it is difficult to put into words. What is surprising, even to me, is that just 6 -8 months ago, before her condition made this final turn, I would not have such a strong emotional response. Thanks for the post, it is interesting and the subject matter thought provoking.
You make and excellent point about the “horrific reality” of this illness and the contrast to the “constructed reality” of these images. It isn’t neat and it is indeed so difficult to articulate. I too have been recently deeply wrestling with the quick shifts in identity/personality and poignant deterioration with loved ones and it is indeed so harsh and destabilizing on top of being simply heartbreaking. These images seem to almost reflect the same sort of sense one has when on fast-moving train passing something meaningful, that piques something thought forgotten but too intense to really ever entirely leave you — until it does. Yes, a very strong emotional response that really stopped me in my tracks. Thanks so much for reading and responding. My best to you as you pass through this.