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This handmade book displays stock photo images of societally recognized or normative landmark moments in a person's life (childhood, graduations, courtship, marriage, having a child, becoming a grandparent, etc.). The photos are laid out sequentially with two different aesthetic treatments where the photos are visually taken apart to either emphasize individual faces or social units / relationships. In both cases, photos are split into two layers: the top layer is vellum so that the photos appear 'whole' before being split into text and image fragments as the reader turns the pages.

The book explores how expectations and norms are shaped through repetition and representation. Stock photos are the glossy, idealized images that advertisers and media outlets use to illustrate or stand in for larger ideas. By breaking the images physically apart and filling in the fragments with miniscule text descriptions of lives that fit and don't fit idealized norms (as literal subtext), I highlight the inadequacies of these photographs and the expectations they represent. Additionally, by deconstructing the images, I imply the ways in which they are, in fact, constructed. Similarly, the photo album form references the idea of constructed narratives.