Book Is Departure For Anne Geddes
NEW YORK -- Most photographers are at the mercy of their models. Anne Geddes is no different; she works around her subjects' schedules and, beyond that, she tries to anticipate their every desire to better ensure their good moods.
That means there is a lot of pampering going on at the studio -- and a lot of Pampers.
Geddes takes pictures of infants. Only infants.
"I'm very specific about the ages of the babies. I don't do 2-year-olds. I'm too old. I've done my time," says Geddes with a laugh. Her favorite models are newborns because they don't squirm yet, and 7- and 8-month-olds who can sit up and smile but usually aren't too mobile.
(Geddes does, though, admit to taking her own teenage daughters' photos more often than they like.)
Geddes has created three allphoto coffee table books, her own line of baby clothes, several photo-themed journals, greeting cards and calendars. But even before she launched this successful career, she decided that she'd have complete control over her work, taking direction only from her husband Kel, a former TV executive who handles her business affairs, her models and their parents.
Geddes self-publishes her work so there are no bosses or shareholders to answer to and she works at her own pace -- except of course during the babies' mealtimes.
According to Geddes, babies are at their photographic best in the midmorning.
It seems as if Geddes' now-familiar images of babies posed like pansies in flowerpots, featured in her 1996 book "Down in the Garden," grew out of nowhere, but her love of photography and children were planted long before that.
Growing up in rural Australia, photo classes weren't an option but Geddes says she spent more time than any of her peers looking at Life magazine covers.
When she became a mother herself in the mid-1980s, Geddes, now 46, felt the formal portraits that were taken of her children by another photographer just didn't capture their spirit. So, she picked up her husband's 35-millimeter camera and started shooting.
She made the rounds of her neighbors back yards, persuading some to pay for pictures. When the family moved to Auckland, New Zealand, she set up her first professional studio.
"I did it to better control the lights and the environment, not the kids," she explains. Geddes knows better than to try to do that.
In her latest book "Pure," the cover shot features a young mother in a gauzy dress holding her 8-day-old baby under the cloth against her stomach. On his own, the baby assumed the fetal position that he gave up only a few days earlier, which made for the perfect photograph, Geddes explains during an interview at the Manhattan apartment they maintain in addition to their Auckland home. "Pure" is without any of the colorful props that made Geddes' earlier work so identifiable. She says the book is supposed to be a celebration of birth, embracing everything that goes along it, including nude portraits of pregnant women, the stretch marks on their stomach and the newborns' closed eyes.
But while the very natural look of the pictures is a departure for Geddes, the models are familiar. She used siblings of her former subjects whenever possible.
"It was a very conscious decision to use them (the siblings). First, they are easy to find, and it's also about equality between siblings," she says. "We are sympathetic toward sibling rivalry."
In her eyes, Geddes says, there is nothing more rewarding than capturing the beauty and innocence of a newborn on film, even if it's not the career goal of most photographers.
"Other photographers say to me, `Oh, I used to take pictures of babies' -- implying that they went on to better things," says Geddes, "but I think babies are undervalued as artists."
Geddes says she often thinks about where her models will be in 20 years and all the opportunities awaiting them. "I hope each one will turn out to be a nice person.
They don't know about anger, hatred or racial discrimination now. That's their beauty."
Such young children aren't typically used in advertisements and other media work because their parents aren't usually willing to bring the babies out of the house and into a photo studio, but Geddes says she likes to think her studio is unique.
There are places for the babies to be changed and fed, and comfortable chairs for the mothers to sit, eat and exchange stories about how they aren't sleeping, Geddes describes. The rooms are kept warm so Geddes is used to working in short-sleeve shirts.
Since babies are not known for their patience, Geddes does a dry run with the lights and sets with dolls the day before.
"I don't keep babies waiting. They have the biggest egos of all. They think the world revolves around them -- and it does."