21 images Created 26 Apr 2017
SECRET LIFE OF MOTHERS
It was in Kenya, photographing Masai mothers and children, where I was struck by the power of the familiar and the mundane.
By then I had spent most of the last 20 years working as a journalist, photographing everything from street battles in the West Bank to meetings of world leaders.
But over a couple of weeks amid the rugged landscape and the cattle-herding families, I began to wonder: Why did I think mothers here were worthy of being documented and not the mothers in my own community?
I realized I had turned a blind eye to the complex story right next to me: in the school runs, the trips to the store, the swimming lessons and the countless birthday parties. It is the world I navigate every day with my two young sons. Every couple of days, for instance, we stop at the supermarket, and there’s the battle to get the boys into the shopping cart. I take them through the aisles and navigate my options: Shreddies? Cheerios? The store brand? My thoughts crisscross with the shouts of brothers tugging at each other and at what they can grab from the shelves. I started to ask myself: Should this be forgotten? Isn’t this worthy of being photographed?
I was exhausted by the daily marathon of motherhood. Ten breast feedings a day had made photography at home a low priority.
Children and mothers inhabit a place that until a few years ago I didn’t know existed. Now my days are spent with costumed storm troopers patrolling my hallways. My evenings are filled with dinners and bath times and bedtime reading and tantrums and so much else. Taking pictures makes me stop and look.
Now I think of the moments that I’ve already lost: the births, the early baby years. The ambulance trip we took in the middle of night after my younger son, Joe, held his breath and fainted. I had seen my share of dead babies in war zones by then. I had photographed them. But when my own child went white, his lips blue, his body limp, I did not reach for my camera. I reached for the phone to call for an ambulance. He was fine by the time it arrived, but the medics still insisted he go to the hospital.
Photography and motherhood both offer lessons in loss. As a photographer, there is the loss of so many moments that you fail to capture. As a mother, there is the loss of personal space, of modesty, of identity. This work has allowed me to see how my life is reflected in so many other lives. I take a photo of handprints etched on the glass of the window, set against the afternoon sun, and another mother talks to me of her own life, her own choices, her own son’s handprints.
During all those years I chased wars and summits I thought my work was personal. Only now do I see that I was always one step removed. Now the personal is obvious. There’s no need to claim journalistic objectivity. Here, in these photographs, are my frustrations, joys and insecurities with the choices I’ve made as a journalist and a mother. Here is the drama, beauty and humor of my backyard.
By then I had spent most of the last 20 years working as a journalist, photographing everything from street battles in the West Bank to meetings of world leaders.
But over a couple of weeks amid the rugged landscape and the cattle-herding families, I began to wonder: Why did I think mothers here were worthy of being documented and not the mothers in my own community?
I realized I had turned a blind eye to the complex story right next to me: in the school runs, the trips to the store, the swimming lessons and the countless birthday parties. It is the world I navigate every day with my two young sons. Every couple of days, for instance, we stop at the supermarket, and there’s the battle to get the boys into the shopping cart. I take them through the aisles and navigate my options: Shreddies? Cheerios? The store brand? My thoughts crisscross with the shouts of brothers tugging at each other and at what they can grab from the shelves. I started to ask myself: Should this be forgotten? Isn’t this worthy of being photographed?
I was exhausted by the daily marathon of motherhood. Ten breast feedings a day had made photography at home a low priority.
Children and mothers inhabit a place that until a few years ago I didn’t know existed. Now my days are spent with costumed storm troopers patrolling my hallways. My evenings are filled with dinners and bath times and bedtime reading and tantrums and so much else. Taking pictures makes me stop and look.
Now I think of the moments that I’ve already lost: the births, the early baby years. The ambulance trip we took in the middle of night after my younger son, Joe, held his breath and fainted. I had seen my share of dead babies in war zones by then. I had photographed them. But when my own child went white, his lips blue, his body limp, I did not reach for my camera. I reached for the phone to call for an ambulance. He was fine by the time it arrived, but the medics still insisted he go to the hospital.
Photography and motherhood both offer lessons in loss. As a photographer, there is the loss of so many moments that you fail to capture. As a mother, there is the loss of personal space, of modesty, of identity. This work has allowed me to see how my life is reflected in so many other lives. I take a photo of handprints etched on the glass of the window, set against the afternoon sun, and another mother talks to me of her own life, her own choices, her own son’s handprints.
During all those years I chased wars and summits I thought my work was personal. Only now do I see that I was always one step removed. Now the personal is obvious. There’s no need to claim journalistic objectivity. Here, in these photographs, are my frustrations, joys and insecurities with the choices I’ve made as a journalist and a mother. Here is the drama, beauty and humor of my backyard.
