18 Photographers’ Portraits of Their Moms, From Loving to Unapologetic
Momme (2018). Photograph by Latoya Ruby Frazier. “Momme 2018 is an anniversary self-portrait remake of Momme 2008 from a decade earlier. It marks the one-year anniversary of my mother’s survival on life support. With our noses, lips, and eyes almost aligned, it signifies how we took courage and remained steadfast in the midst of all the hatred, brutality, injustice, and inequality we’ve endured as Black working-class women from southwestern Pennsylvania. Our bond and camaraderie are fire-proof. I have an awesome and creative mother. This work would not be possible without her love and support.” —Latoya Ruby Frazier
W Magazine
Mother’s Day
May 13, 2018
by Stephanie Eckardt and Michael Beckert
“I want my parents to live forever,” the late photographer Larry Sultan, who died in 2009, once said of his storied photographs of his mother and father that made up his ’90s series and effort to “to stop time,” Pictures From Home. Thanks to the continued legacy of his photos, he’s in fact succeeded in doing so. So have, and will, so many other photographers who’ve turned to their parents—and particularly their mothers—as subjects, whether as documentation or simply appreciation, as evidenced here in a Mother’s Day showcase of the moms of everyone from Tina Barney, a similarly film-still-minded photographer, to up-and-comers like Olivia Bee, who, amidst all the pink hair dye and makeout sessions she’s captured as part of her acclaimed series on adolescence, has recognized the importance of teens’ relationships with their parents in that time, too. Indeed, no matter their age, their generation, or their reasoning—from the intimacy of Charlie Engman and Lauren Withrow’s topless portraiture, to Ryan James Caruther’s tribute to memories like how his mom once accidentally left a meatloaf in the oven for seven days—throughout the years, turning their lens toward motherhood has proven to be something they can all agree on.
Courtesy of: W Magazine
