Families photographed

research using books

Family photographs are a special genre within photography. They “employ both ‘snapshot’ and formally arranged portraits styles, veers across documentary and portraiture, often borrowing conventions from both”.

Bate, D. (2009) Photography. Oxford. Berg. p.5

Most of us have and cherish images of close or distant family members taken on special occasions. Loved ones’ photographs are kept in frames in our homes, uploaded on computer desktops and proud parents have their children’s photos tucked away in their wallets, always ready to show them to others.

They remind us of happy or sad times, importantly they represent where we belong to and in an indirect way they are connections to our identity. From all the reasons why a member of a family picks up the camera and records these moments, one quite common is to document as his/her child grows up. Most people take these photos and their subject is the child and the child’s surroundings, however in Fiona Yaron-Field’s photographs, collected in a book titled Up Close – A Mother’s View, are not solely about her children but they are also selfportraits of a mother facing and coping hardship. With the photos, accompanied with text on the facing page, it is a study and exploration of relationships; her own relationship to herself as well as portraying the parental relationship to her children, most prominently to her elder daughter Ophir, and relationship between Ophir and others.

“This book is all about me, and my life and my mum. It is full of photographs and writing together. The photographs show me and my friends and what we’re doing. The writing is about Mummy.”

Yaron-Field, F. (2008) Up Close – A Mother’s View. Ophir about Up Close. Piermont. Bunker Hill Publishing Inc. p.93

Some of the stories are descriptions of actual events, some are revealing Fiona Yaron-Fields’s own childhood memories and others are her thoughts as the mother and carer for a child with Downs Syndrome. While looking at these images and reading the lines I felt the purpose of this book and collection of images are different from the usual family albums. It isn’t just about documenting her daughters since birth. Ophir’s condition has set other challenges than normally a young mother would face with her healthy newborn.

“I didn’t recognize this baby. She didn’t look like us, so fair and her features seemed to belong to another family. She was not the baby I had imagined inside me, the one I had been talking to for the past nine months.”

Yaron-Field, F. (2008) Up Close – A Mother’s View. Introduction. Piermont. Bunker Hill Publishing Inc. p.XI

“Caught between guild and fear – ‘never doing enough.’ I feel robbed, robbed of being just a natural mother”

Yaron-Field, F. (2008) Up Close – A Mother’s View. Introduction. Piermont. Bunker Hill Publishing Inc. p.12

The above lines are like confessions and reading them feels like if I found someone’s journal of secret thoughts. I think there are more reasons for writing then publishing them, and the pictures, in a book. One reason is the same as why people keep journals. Other than keeping memories in a chronological order, it can also help to sort out confusing emotions. When Fiona Yaron-Field suddenly was faced with huge responsibilities but her emotions were all over the place, documenting her feelings and thoughts must have been a great help. I also feel she used writing and photographing as a help to accept the situation and to figure out more about herself, her daughter and others and the previously mentioned relationships. She is a mother but a photographer by profession, so taking pictures must have helped her to engage with something which is her ‘old herself’, the ‘familiar’.  It was an activity that related to that person who she knew, part of her identity that, I believe, she had fear of losing. Also I believe it provided her with confidence in a period when she did not feel confident in both her acts and feelings.

The camera “symbolized a part of me that was not a mother, a reminder of my own potential” This process helped me make sense of, reflect on, and contain my experience. It offered a means to not be overwhelmed or cut off from this journey, an opportunity to deepen and enrich our lives together.”

Yaron-Field, F. (2008) Up Close – A Mother’s View. Introduction. Piermont. Bunker Hill Publishing Inc. p.XIII

Sharing her experience might have felt as sharing the problem itself but also a good way of raising awareness of these issues and to help others to gain understanding of an illness and its effects through first hand experience.

…“maybe I do have some need to expose the myths and stereotypes about Downs syndrome that are deeply engraved in society’s consciousness. “

“I hope that making public our private world may challenge and change perceptions”

Yaron-Field, F. (2008) Up Close – A Mother’s View. Introduction. Piermont. Bunker Hill Publishing Inc. p.XIII and XIV

"Lovable: from the moment of birth this word follows us around like a consolation prize; to be labeled ‘lovable’ and also ‘not desirable’ is a strange contradiction."

Yaron-Field, F. (2008) Up Close – A Mother’s View. Introduction. Piermont. Bunker Hill Publishing Inc. p.8

The honest images and thoughts in Up Close take us on a very personal journey and narrative. I also felt it is quite educational while full of beautifully sad sentiments as well as some happy moments. It is certainly different from any other 'family album' I have ever seen.

images scanned from the book