I was completely surprised at the serenity
November 11, 2013 6:18 AM   Subscribe

 
What a neat project. I'm amazed by the expressions of peace and serenity on these mother's faces. Also at how big one day old babies are, wow!
posted by arnicae at 6:33 AM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


I was completely surprised at the serenity I found at each house. You imagine mayhem, screaming and crying and drama, yet in reality, you are invited into the calmest space ever. It got me thinking that post birth is so misrepresented in our culture/media and this is unhelpful to women and new families. If you were told about this overwhelming calmness, women would feel reassured they would be able to cope. The only stories I heard before I had my children were ones of pain straight to sleepless nights. This episode of pure joy seemed to be missing, so it was a surprise to me.

Props to her in so many ways... these are BEAUTIFUL. I met my friends' one-week-old boy last night in fact, and mom and dad were both busting proud (their third, he was born the night after my wedding.)

Thanks for posting!
posted by polly_dactyl at 6:37 AM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


These are really lovely photos, and looking through them makes me feel somehow soothed.

I wished, though, that there were more diversity in terms of class, race, and ethnic background. I understand that would probably be a harder project to achieve, in terms of getting access to women and their babies, but I think it would be really interesting to see.
posted by bookish at 6:54 AM on November 11, 2013 [6 favorites]


I too am amazed at the peace and serenity portrayed in the photos, because I remember what it's really like.
posted by escabeche at 7:04 AM on November 11, 2013 [4 favorites]


This is much different than photographer Rineke Dijkstra’s take on mothers with newborns- seen here (NSFW)

From the Tate description: The women appear at once vulnerable and invincible, traumatised and self-composed.
posted by vacapinta at 7:10 AM on November 11, 2013 [3 favorites]


Vacapinta, I had the same thought. The biggest difference is the setting: hospital vs home.
posted by Dragonness at 7:12 AM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


Beautiful!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:22 AM on November 11, 2013


Vacapinta, I had the same thought. The biggest difference is the setting: hospital vs home.

And the fact that in the set Vacapinta linked to, the mothers are varying degrees of naked? I mean, sheesh, of course they look vulnerable.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:44 AM on November 11, 2013 [6 favorites]


Dang, as someone who wants to remain childless despite her biological clock screaming and all of her friends reproducing, this is a giant punch in the ovaries. Very beautiful, touching photographs that will be treasured by the families, I'm sure.
posted by Fig at 7:44 AM on November 11, 2013 [3 favorites]


This is a whole genre. At our hospital there was a contracted photographer who took "first day photos" of every family who permitted it. She showed us her portfolio while trying to convince us to buy prints of ours.

What I notice about these as opposed to those is that the mothers look a bit more human, and the newborns look a bit less. I think that's because the newborns are less "dressed up" here, half of them being in just a diaper. And the mothers probably are a bit more at their ease, dressed in regular clothes, being at home.

Though personally, I was very glad to be in a hospital where the nurses could help. I still felt like a truck had hit me, the next day. Mind you, I was induced both times and my babies were both big. Most recent one had nursing problems, too, that kept us up all that first night. So I think there's a little selection effect here too. The home-delivery mothers and babies look serene at least in part because they're the ones who had an easy enough time of it that they were able to do it at home.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:52 AM on November 11, 2013


"Obviously, you never know if anyone will be home within 24 hrs if they go to hospital so I won't be photographing all of them."

Oops, should've read the interview. Looks like many of these were hospital deliveries -- but there's still some selection effect if you're home that soon.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:28 AM on November 11, 2013


And the fact that in the set Vacapinta linked to, the mothers are varying degrees of naked? I mean, sheesh, of course they look vulnerable.

On reflection, in the Dijkstra pictures the babies must be just hours old.
posted by Dragonness at 8:58 AM on November 11, 2013


I love how incongruous the total radiance and pride of the mums is compared to the bizarrely alien indifference of the bairns.
posted by freya_lamb at 9:08 AM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


They are lovely pictures.

But one day, when people start researching how the Hackney of 2013 is very different to the Hackney of 1993 they'll look at pictures like this and see the gentrification writ large. The names of these parents and children are very... new Hackney.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:40 AM on November 11, 2013


In the second link, if you click through all the lovely photos of mothers and newborn babies, it then without notice switches to somber portraits of individual adults, and makes you feel sad.

These women are all so undeniably beautiful. I would be so, so, so interested to have these shown to a group of young men with stereotypical ideals of female beauty and hear what they have to say. Would they be able to see it?
posted by HotToddy at 10:08 AM on November 11, 2013


These are beautiful. I especially love the one of Hazel and Rudy, all tears and joy. It's a sweet, genuine moment.
posted by mochapickle at 10:11 AM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


Having seen a few new moms and babes through doula work recently, these look lovely and honest to me. For one thing, we don't often see images of new moms with the "yeah, I was totally just pregnant yesterday" look going on, and it's great to see those bellies being shown, not hidden, here.
posted by snorkmaiden at 10:38 AM on November 11, 2013 [3 favorites]


I would not object to some naked dudesfathers thrown in there for the sake of variety.
posted by 0 at 10:53 AM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


I love how incongruous the total radiance and pride of the mums is compared to the bizarrely alien indifference of the bairns.

And yet you can see the family resemblances, which is mind-blowing to me, for some reason. Something about opposites being so connected? Pride and indifference. Newness and experience. They're two people who've just been on opposite ends of the same experience, so alike and yet so different.
posted by Sara C. at 11:10 AM on November 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


These women are all so undeniably beautiful. I would be so, so, so interested to have these shown to a group of young men with stereotypical ideals of female beauty and hear what they have to say. Would they be able to see it?

Especially the shots that are composed so that you can see that these new moms are people with lives. The shot that most blew me away was the one of the woman with the nose piercing, where there's a guitar in the background. This woman is a mother. And yet still an individual.

I think a big part of the problem with the "young men with stereotypical ideas of female beauty" is the madonna/whore thing. You can either be A Mom or a sex object, with little room to just be a human. These women are just being humans. Holding their new little humans.
posted by Sara C. at 11:12 AM on November 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yeah, dads holding infants at that age are pretty priceless, too. It would be nice to have some more of these.

Both my daughters had their pictures taken holding their babies right after delivery. Their post-delivery exhaustion rivals that of marathoners. I'm amazed that these women look so chipper one day after delivering their wrinkled little old men babes.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:46 AM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


I know that an artist is going to pick and choose what s/he feels is appropriate for a collection, but I was struck by the lack of non-typical births represented. I say this after the experience of Mrs. Plinth and our first being sent immediately to a NICU in another hospital and my exposure to fatherhood was a several minute delay for mandatory hand washing and having to wear a gown and a mask while I held my newborn.

Look, the world loves healthy babies. I get that. Sometimes the experience is less than ideal. Does that have to be marginalized? It strikes me as a subject matter with a potential for more power in an image.

One thing nice about this NICU is that organize a "reunion" at 6 months (IIRC) for all the babies that were admitted (and survived) in that month and it was just as powerful to see how various babies thrived and to read the look that gets etched in your face when you are worried 24/7.
posted by plinth at 11:47 AM on November 11, 2013 [5 favorites]


I was struck by the lack of non-typical births represented. I say this after the experience of Mrs. Plinth and our first being sent immediately to a NICU in another hospital and my exposure to fatherhood was a several minute delay for mandatory hand washing and having to wear a gown and a mask while I held my newborn.

As far as I can tell, all of the photographs are taken at home.

Babies in the NICU are, by definition, not at home.

It might have been very difficult to get permission to shoot photos in hospitals (and I would hope it would be difficult to get photo shoot access in a NICU with babies that are 24 hours old -- they call it the Intensive Care Unit for a reason!). It might have been difficult to get access to women's homes in situations where the birth hadn't gone smoothly, the baby wasn't doing OK, there were still a lot of unknowns, etc.

It would be one thing if this was portraits of six month old babies with their mothers, but in this particular project it strikes me as perfectly OK not to disrupt the lives of people who are already under a lot of stress, and best practices not to march into a NICU for photoshoots of newborns who are likely not in stable condition.
posted by Sara C. at 12:00 PM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


She also says in the interview that she's trying to specifically select images that are peaceful and serene because she feels like this narrative is lacking in our society:
"I had grown up knowing nothing surrounding birth except pain and fear until I came across Ina May's birth stories by chance. Just reading those stories made me realize that if they could do it so could I. I felt supported and encouraged by women I had never met and wanted to pass the same message onto other women, not being a writer a series of images seemed to be the way to do this. . . . I was completely surprised at the serenity I found at each house. You imagine mayhem, screaming and crying and drama, yet in reality, you are invited into the calmest space ever. It got me thinking that post birth is so misrepresented in our culture/media and this is unhelpful to women and new families. If you were told about this overwhelming calmness, women would feel reassured they would be able to cope. The only stories I heard before I had my children were ones of pain straight to sleepless nights. This episode of pure joy seemed to be missing, so it was a surprise to me."
I don't think she's trying to present a holistic portrait of birth experiences across our society.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 12:03 PM on November 11, 2013 [3 favorites]


> Yeah, dads holding infants at that age are pretty priceless, too. It would be nice to have some more of these.

Okay! Here's a photo I took from my hospital bed 11 years ago.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:35 PM on November 11, 2013 [7 favorites]


She is implying that the experience she's documenting is the normal experience for women and families.

Is she? I didn't read that anywhere in her interview.

I think generally language like "natural birth" can be unintentionally problematic, but there's nothing in her interview that implies she thinks what she photographs is the norm. In fact, her surprise at the relative calm and serenity of these households underscores that, even though she seems to have curated these images and these subjects with a specific message--namely that birth doesn't have to be medicalized or scary and that the period of time after does not need to be chaotic--in mind.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 12:47 PM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


How likely are people who had difficult births to invite a photographer into their home to photograph themselves and their (possibly not healthy/stable/ready-for-prime-time) baby?
posted by Sara C. at 12:52 PM on November 11, 2013


I think plenty of people would. I'm on a reddit childbirth community and plenty of people post pictures of their children in NICUs. But mostly I don't think that would make much sense for this photographer, given the specific goals of her project.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:18 PM on November 11, 2013


But, the next day? Also, surely your average NICU isn't into a camera crew coming in for a photo shoot with a baby who is likely in NICU for a reason. It's one thing to snap a photo on your phone, but that's not how projects like this work.
posted by Sara C. at 1:26 PM on November 11, 2013


Maybe when thinking about the picking and choosing--she put out a request online in her community for people to contact her, and then she went and took their pictures, so it is somewhat self-selecting, and limited to this bit of London where she lives. Not that this invalidates the fact that she went into it with an agenda, but from the interview it doesn't sound like she rejected anyone.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:34 PM on November 11, 2013


Also, comedian Nick Thune just had a baby :) Adorbs city.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:35 PM on November 11, 2013


This is something I always want to tell scared parents expecting their first -- that it might be the most peaceful, joyful, centered time of your life. Even with all the crying. I never do, because I never know how to say that without sounding like a smug asshole.

Anyway looking at these pictures made me happy.
posted by gerstle at 1:58 PM on November 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'll tell you what would have made for an interesting photography project: Taking a photo of either my wife or me with our son the day after he was born when I'm sure we would have looked as glowing and elated as the subjects of this project, and then again a few weeks later after he developed colic.
posted by The Gooch at 2:09 PM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


Corpse in the library, that is a wonderful picture.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:03 PM on November 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


What great photos. As a parent, what struck me in these photos is the sudden reality that this kid is EVERYTHING, and that one would willingly jump in front of a bus, stop a bullet, whatever, in order to preserve the life of this new being.
posted by Danf at 4:25 PM on November 11, 2013


Yeah, dads holding infants at that age are pretty priceless, too. It would be nice to have some more of these.

Once I had the catheter removed, I was able to stand up and get this one.

(I was also surprised at how dreamy and serene the first few days were. THEN everything unspooled in ten directions at once.)
posted by sobell at 4:36 PM on November 11, 2013 [3 favorites]


Sara C.: "How likely are people who had difficult births to invite a photographer into their home to photograph themselves and their (possibly not healthy/stable/ready-for-prime-time) baby?"

Very, because they don't know how many pictures of/with their child they will be able to have. Every one of my peer group who's had a baby in the NICU has had pictures right away, very often with a professional photographer (sometimes the photographer who did their "pregnancy portraits," sometimes the hospital's baby photographer). They don't necessarily want to see or review the proofs, though, for quite a while. A friend of mine who's a portrait photographer who does a lot of babies told me she stores the NICU photos separately and plans on storing them indefinitely, because it's often quite a while before the parents feel able to face the photos -- but they are ALWAYS glad to have them, no matter whether the baby survives and thrives or doesn't make it.

In fact, parents on disability boards will often tell women who are pregnant and know their child will have a disability or congenital abnormality to make sure to get pictures right away, just like you would with any baby, because parents whose babies have immediate medical needs often don't think to do it with everything else going on, or they think they won't want a picture of the baby's visually-obvious abnormality before it's fixed (if it gets surgically fixed), but most parents later wish that they had pictures of their baby right at birth, and many talk about how they wish they'd taken pictures of her extra thumb or whatever before the surgery, because it's hard to remember in the haze of birth, but a really important part of your new baby's perfection. And if you don't want the images, you can always destroy the photos/files later.

One big difference, though, is that parents of NICU babies or babies with birth defects often show those photos to a limited circle of friends and family, or keep them only to themselves. First-day pictures of a 26-week preemie have a really different emotional weight than first-day pictures of a healthy full-term newborn. So even though people are taking more of them than you'd think, you're not going to see many of them pop up on your facebook feed.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:55 PM on November 11, 2013 [5 favorites]


Again just to be super clear, I'm not questioning the idea that parents who've experienced difficult births/NICU would want photographs of their children.

I'm questioning whether they would schedule an art photography shoot in the NICU itself the day after the baby was born.

A photo shoot like the ones involved in this series isn't a hospital staff photographer or an excited loved-one with a smartphone. It's a team of 3-5 people, lights, crates of equipment, and possibly more. Not just for the thirty seconds it takes to snap a photo, but for hours.
posted by Sara C. at 5:09 PM on November 11, 2013


For that matter, I'm also wondering how many of the photographed babies were induced -- makes the photo shoots a lot easier to schedule.
posted by Sara C. at 5:13 PM on November 11, 2013


I know there are professional photographers who volunteer their time and talent to do newborn shoots with families who have endured a stillbirth. The hospital will often help facilitate these sessions.

I am lucky enough not to have had experienced any NICU complications, but it would absolutely not surprise me if "steer parents toward photographic services that can work in NICU" was something some NICUs and maternity wards have taken up doing.
posted by sobell at 11:02 PM on November 11, 2013


FWIW, I would have done a NICU shoot. Even though the NICU was isolating, it was ultimately a very human place. The area had ample rocking chairs and very calm lighting. I appreciated the breathing electrode was shaped like a duckie and the heart electrodes had pictures of a froggie, a whale, and a teddy bear. There is at least one picture of me taken in the NICU while I was feeding my daughter which was done easily in the first two days.

Funny thing, my daughter was term, but she was in the NICU because she has Down syndrome and had a stroke/seizures shortly after birth, due quite likely to a heart defect. In fact, when she was removed by emergency C-section, I could tell that the staff in the room was concerned and working very hard to jump start her heart and breathing. Still, compared with many of the other babies in the NICU, she was an absolute behemoth. In the NICU, because of the heart issue, they hooked her up to an O2 sat monitor, which had to be the stupidest device on the planet in that the SOP was that even when strapped on, babies wiggle them out of alignment so they get bad readings, which triggers an alarm, which the nurses just shut off without really checking. When we were allowed to take her home, we had to have a Oxygen tank set up (with a somewhat mobile unit). They told us we were going to also be sent home with a O2 sat monitor. "Just like the ones you have here?" Yes. "The hell you are."

Of course, this had nothing to do with the photography. Don't mind me.
posted by plinth at 1:33 AM on November 12, 2013


I know there are professional photographers who volunteer their time and talent to do newborn shoots with families who have endured a stillbirth.

Sure, but this isn't that. This photographer isn't a NICU volunteer. This project isn't about stillbirths.

It seems really weird to me to criticize this project based on completely arbitrary ideas about what one wishes the photographer had decided to do. It's a portrait series of people posing with their one day old newborns at home. That somewhat limits the scope of the families that can conceivably be included.
posted by Sara C. at 10:00 AM on November 12, 2013




I know there are professional photographers who volunteer their time and talent to do newborn shoots with families who have endured a stillbirth.

Sure, but this isn't that. This photographer isn't a NICU volunteer. This project isn't about stillbirths.


I didn't say it was, Sara C. I was walking through my reasoning that it would not be entirely implausible for a hospital to help NICU parents set up a professional photography session, since many maternity ward staffs are becoming well-versed in doing so under far more adverse circumstances.
posted by sobell at 10:30 PM on November 12, 2013


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