Deconstructions of the romantic.

I have a yearning to deconstruct the well plied history of pregnancy that is mainly presented as glamour shots, and a romantic ideal of motherhood and maternity in minimal settings.

I have been researching the idea of presenting the images, with and on, different mediums. Several possibilities are photographing with a pin hole camera and toy cameras such as the holga. Other ideas have been to print the images on material associated with mother hood such as draws, printing on bodies, fake skin or stretched material. Or just on fiber paper. Other ideas have been to print images as Polaroid transfers (see Maggie Kaus gallery of Polaroid transfers and Holga images), bicromates, gum bicromates, cyanotypes.

Other ideas have been to change the context of pregnancy by photographing either journalistically or increasing the stage the shoots. Some of these possibilities are to photograph increasingly staged portraits utilizing theatre props such as masks and sculpture and settings.

Another interest would be to do the images as highly produced worked images, similar to the works found in PDN.

At present there are so many ideas, that I will experiment with the most accessible first. On my next shoot I plan to take images that are similar and expected of pregnancy photographs and as the shoot goes on changes cameras, change settings. One of my beginning points has been to emulate Mathew Dols (see link) work with the holga and wax on his prints. The other is to use lens babies of holgas to get the effect of a clear center and an out of focus outer section to the image.