This Couple’s Photos Show What Growing Old Together Really Looks Like

When photographer John Paul Evans began documenting his relationship with his "then-civil partner, now-married partner" Peter, he was hoping to showcase a new interpretation of traditional family photos. His resulting series Till Death Do Us Part does just that.

"I was critical of the way that photography is used to reinforce concepts of the family and normality," Evans told Refinery29. "As a consequence, I have very few images of the 26 years that Peter and I have spent together. As I am now entering my 50s and Peter is in his late 70s, there was an urgency to address this."

And so, he and his partner became the picture of domesticity, so to speak, and took on traditional poses for the series. They wore floral aprons; they offered each other flower bouquets; and they laid out each other's suits and underwear for the day to come.

These images do more than just satirise traditional marriage tropes. Evans gives these banalities deeper meaning by capturing the comfort of domestic life, while simultaneously suggesting something darker. Marriage provides intimacy, but its promise of "'till death do us part" can also force people to confront mortality — both their own and their partner's.

Evans hopes that his photos evoke "a mixture of comedy and melancholy," as these "are both life-affirming emotions," he said. Click through to see a selection of images from Till Death Do Us Part.