Echoes in the garden: a photographer captures loss and memory

What lingers when a home is emptied? Devin Oktar Yalkin’s new book, Alone Together (One Last Trip Around the Garden), published by Zone, doesn’t offer easy answers, but rather a hauntingly beautiful meditation on the spaces we inhabit and the memories they absorb—and return.

A black and white language of loss

The project centers on the family home in Brigantine, New Jersey, rendered in stark, evocative black and white photographs. Yalkin’s deliberate choice isn't merely aesthetic; as he explains, “Black and white has always felt like the most honest way for me to see.” He strips away the distractions of color, allowing light, texture, and the emotional weight of the spaces to take center stage. The result is a series of images that feel less like documentation and more like unearthed fragments of a shared past, each one whispering a story.

It's a process rooted in physicality, a deliberate slowing down.