PORTFOLIO
Portfolio
by Kara Fox
The elderly...from war to romance.
Thomas Sanders is a unique photographer with a rare talent for capturing the essence of the elderly.
His passion for photography began in his junior year of high school in Sonoma, CA. His grandfather, Willis Sanders, a noted photographer in his own right, taught Thomas about portrait lighting, which served to ignite his passion for portraiture. (Willis is best known for his portraits of Ernest Hemingway on his boat, the Pillar, in Cuba, which is a part of the Smithsonian collection).
In his senior year at Cal Poly, Thomas began to photograph WWII veterans. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles where he was commissioned by Belmont Village Senior Living Communities to travel around the country and photograph veterans. This was a dream come true for him. His goal for the WWII project was to have a book published on these men's and women’s faces and to tell the stories to garner a greater appreciation for our veterans and soldiers.
This past November, Welcome Books, an imprint of Random House, published The Last Good War: The Faces and Voices of WWII and Thomas set off on his first 50-day book tour.
Thomas loves photographing the elderly and has been photographing people in their 80’s and 90’s since he was 21. His friends mock him for not photographing young, beautiful women.
"Pretty younger women might be nice to look at but the elderly have wisdom to offer. The wrinkles in their faces are like maps showing their long experienced lives,” he said.
His most recent project, Lasting Love, is an homage to the love and commitment of couples. We all want to know what makes a healthy relationship and these couples that have each been married for over 50 years offer much for us to learn.