Sharon J. Wohlmuth, a photojournalist who with the writer Carol Saline struck publishing gold in 1994 with “Sisters,” a text-and-photo book that profiled famous and not-so-famous sets of sisters and became a runaway best seller, died on Feb. 12 at her home in Philadelphia. She was 75.
Her nephew Zachary Joslow confirmed the death but did not specify a cause.
Ms. Wohlmuth was a veteran photographer at The Philadelphia Inquirer when she and Ms. Saline, a senior writer for Philadelphia magazine, developed the idea that became “Sisters”: Ms. Saline would write profiles of various sets of sisters, and Ms. Wohlmuth would photograph the subjects.
The three dozen sets of sisters they selected included well-known figures like Coretta Scott King, who was featured with her sister, Edythe Scott Bagley, but also people like Bernetta and Margaret Crommarty, Philadelphia sisters in their 80s who were struggling with health problems. Some of the stories were uplifting; others told of personal hardships or strained relations.
No major publisher was interested. Many were kicking themselves later. “Sisters” was ultimately published by Running Press, a small company that had been founded by Ms. Wohlmuth’s husband, Larry Teacher, and his brother, Buz. In late December 1994, the book landed on the nonfiction best-seller list of The New York Times. It was still there more than a year later.
“Sisters” ultimately stayed on the list for a remarkable 63 weeks, sold more than a million copies and spawned imitators. It also brought Ms. Wohlmuth and Ms. Saline a seven-figure contract from Doubleday for two more books, “Mothers & Daughters” (1997) and “Best Friends” (1998). Both also made The Times’s best-seller list.
With her evocative photographs — some joyous, some serene, some heartbreaking — Ms. Wohlmuth sought to complement and enhance Ms. Saline’s words.
“Because I’m a photojournalist, I’m always stepping back and watching for that certain moment to occur,” Ms. Wohlmuth told the weekly newspaper Jewish Exponent in 1997. “It’s not like a formal portrait. There’s got to be something else there.”
Capturing that meant patience. Talking about “Sisters” on CBS’s “The Early Show” in 2004, the book’s 10th anniversary, she invoked the theories of the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.
“You have to be quiet,” she said. “And you know what happens? They become sisters, and it’s that one moment — Cartier-Bresson talks about the decisive moment.”
She added, “I want them to show me who they are as sisters.”
Sharon Barbara Josolowitz was born on Sept. 25, 1946, in Bristol, Conn. Her father, Philip, was a merchant; her mother, Rebecca (Dressler) Josolowitz, was a homemaker.
She married Edward Wohlmuth in 1966; they divorced in 1974. By then she was studying photography at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia. Soon after she graduated in 1975, she was working at The Inquirer.
“Sharon and I were the first and only women photographers working at The Philadelphia Inquirer in the late 1970s,” Sara Krulwich, now a photographer for The Times, recalled. “She wasn’t really interested in the technical side of photojournalism, but that didn’t matter. Her skill was her ability to connect with her subjects in such a real way that they would relax and open their lives to her.
“She became The Inquirer’s secret weapon,” Ms. Krulwich continued. “If a door was closed to everyone else, Sharon could always manage to get in and take wonderful pictures.”
Her assignments for the paper covered a wide range of topics, from local political and cultural events to stories of international importance. When the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa., experienced a near meltdown in 1979, she was one of three photographers dispatched to the area. The Inquirer’s staff won a Pulitzer Prize for that coverage. Two years later she was in strife-torn Somalia photographing refugee camps.
Ms. Wohlmuth and Ms. Saline were casual acquaintances when, at a brunch, they began chatting about sisterly bonds. Ms. Saline had just been given a needlepoint by her sister for her birthday that said something about being forever friends, and Ms. Wohlmuth had long noticed that, to her photographer’s eye, sisters gave off a particular visual vibe. Running Press gave them a small advance to pursue the book idea.
“We spent every cent of our little advance going around the country photographing and interviewing the sisters we chose,” Ms. Saline said by email, “staying in the cheapest motels and ordering pizzas for dinner.”
The selection process was part research, part happenstance. Ms. Wohlmuth, in a 1995 interview with Newsday, remembered hearing a song by Kate and Anna McGarrigle on her car radio and being struck by the lyrics, then heading for the nearest phone.
“I had the McGarrigles lined up the next day,” she recalled — Anna, Kate and their sister Jane.
Ms. Wohlmuth married Mr. Teacher in 1991. He died in 2014. She is survived by a brother, Gary Joslow; a sister, Beth Josolowitz; a stepdaughter, Rachael Teacher; and a step-grandson.
The success of “Sisters” landed Ms. Saline and Ms. Wohlmuth on Oprah Winfrey’s program and other talk shows. Ms. Wohlmuth said that among the most gratifying aspects of the book’s success was what she and Ms. Saline heard from readers.
“Sisters give the book to one another as on olive branch,” Ms. Wohlmuth told Jewish Exponent. “And the letters we’ve received — thank-you letters that say, ‘The book brought me and my sister together again.’”
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