I am an Eye Mama | Photographing family

Last week, working in my usual spot on the couch, I kept looking out of the window, checking for the bright yellow delivery van that would be bring me a long awaited gift. Something I played a part in creating, that I have been longing to hold in my hands and drink in with my eyes.

Finally, finally, in the pouring rain, the DHL lady (yellow rain slicker twinning with her yellow van) trundled across my front lawn with a flat brown package. Book sized. Big book sized.

I open the package, tear open plastic wrap, and run my fingers over the gold title. ”Eye Mama. Poetic truths of home and motherhood” . I start through it slowly, page by page. It is beyond beautiful, heartbreaking, heart filling, tender, the work of more than 200 mothers and photographers, turning their cameras on themselves and their families. And there on page 44, printed big and beautiful on a whole page, is my photograph. Of my loves. I am floored.

The story behind the photograph

I birthed my daughter into the first lockdown of the the first wave of Covid in New York City, and so the first few weeks of her life were spent almost entirely within the walls of our small Brooklyn apartment, with the exception of the occasional neighborhood walk and socially distanced park meet up with friends.

In July, when she was ten weeks old my father-in-law gifted us getaway upstate for a change of scenery and a breathe of fresh air. We headed up to our cabin in the green and steamy New England summer, with our baby screaming in her head off in the car seat, up to our necks in all the accoutrements of new parenthood, hoping we hadn’t forgotten anything crucial. If I remember correctly the very first mishap was to not be able to actually get into the cabin, and there was no cell service to call the owner, so I hung out on the grass in the buggy evening with the baby while J went find to drive around and find a signal.

I hadn’t picked up my camera all that much during my late pregnancy because of horrendous carpal tunnel pain (who knew that was a pregnancy thing? I could barely butter my toast). But that weekend I was starting to come out of the post-partum fog, and the pain in my hands was finally gone. That weekend M’s smiling really took off. She began to grin as big as her entire face in response to certain sounds. She figured out how to get her hand to her mouth. We got caught with her in the pouring rain when we went out for a beer. We were beginning to settle into parenthood and I was having fluttery feelings watching my partner settle into a new comfort fatherhood. And suddenly there it was, my loves, bathed in light from the little skylight in the cabin. I snapped.

The story behind the book

Eye Mama is a curated collection from the gaze of the “Eye Mama”. Conceived and born by photographer and filmmaker Karni Arieli, who began to notice all the mother photographers who were turning their cameras on themselves and their families during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 and posting their intimate and personal work to instagram. She began to collect this mama gaze under the hastag #eyemamaproject.

Karni was reposting the perspectives of hundreds of mamas from all over the globe and the submissions reached into the tens of thousands. The story of how the booked was loved into being is one I’ve followed closely and I won’t detail here as it’s been told all over the media world from National Geographic to The Guardian, to Romper.

I submitted my photographs with zero expectations , but here I sit in absolutely awe of being included in this gorgeous book among so many very talented photographer-mamas, many of whom I have been following and admiring for years.

If you are at all moved by images of motherhood in all their complexity, get yourself a copy. You can buy it at the usual place online, but I encourage you to support small businesses and order it from your local bookstore. If you’re in Austin, I love Black Pearl Books and Book People.