Photographers capture their own experiences as mothers

Documenting her family's life in the Ozarks of Arkansas has helped photographer Terra Fondriest to "slow down and savor many of the small moments that I may have otherwise missed." This photo shows her son and a couple cousins who stayed over at their house one summer. "When they woke up for the day and remembered that each other was there, it was out the door to play in pajamas and underwear," she said.

Karene-Isabelle Jean-Baptiste's daughter holds flowers that her grandmother brought her to cheer her up on a dreary day during the Covid-19 pandemic. "I found a vintage green dress at a Montreal thrift store years ago," Jean-Baptiste remembers. "It turns out to have been made in Canada the same year my mother was born to Haiti and many years before she would move here for a different life. Finding the dress felt serendipitous, and when my daughter dresses up in it I feel the continuity between the previous owner of the dress and my family who emigrated to Canada for a better life. My hope is that we, too, get to pass on this dress from generation to generation."

Arin Yoon, whose husband is in the US Army, has been photographing her children while raising them on military bases. "I try to protect them, but they pull away," she said. "That is the dance of motherhood, pushing forward and pulling away, teaching and learning, holding on and letting go. I try to capture their bond and glimpses into their world when they let me in, before they change right before my eyes."

Kristine Nyborg photographed her daughter minutes before she lost her front tooth. "During the pandemic, our children collectively lost 12 teeth," she said, "and we had a hard time finding coins as the local stores stopped using physical money in our neighborhood." She has three children who were born 15 months apart. "I go to bed exhausted every night, yet every morning they are the people I'm the most excited to see. They have taught me more about living than any other season in my life."

Lauren Spencer Gayeski took this self-portrait in late 2020. "In a lockdown, the house becomes smaller," she said. "There are less places to hide, less places to let out the tears of rage and frustration that I feel as a mother trying to navigate three children in a world that feels completely upended. The details of our lives, the schedules and plans that I had meticulously controlled over the years slipped through my hands like grains of sand. Through it all, I taught my children. We explored outside. We rode bikes. They wore their hair in Mohawks and shades of blue and did all the things they wouldn't be allowed to do in regular school."

Adenike Sogbesan took this self-portrait while breastfeeding her daughter, Monioluwa."In the beginning, motherhood was overwhelming," she said. "All I did was care for my daughter. Neglecting myself and my health made me suffer from postpartum depression, but somehow I found the strength to seek help from professionals. They worked together to remind me of things that struck happiness. The answer was photography, personal care and nature. So I started making self-portraits. My biggest triumph is not having to let go of what I love: photography."

Anna Grevenitis' daughter Luigia was born with Down syndrome. She hopes her photo series "Regard" — in which her daughter is an active collaborator — helps people rethink their assumptions about people living with disabilities. "Mainstream media has a long and fraught history of misrepresenting people living with Down syndrome, portraying them either as stunted angels or pitiable victims to justify a convenient tale of incompetence," she said. "Raising my daughter gave me a unique point of view and a deeper sensitivity, and I knew early that I wanted to find a way to crack that fiction and shine truth into the discussion."

Australian photographer Amy Woodward shows herself pumping to build her milk supply with her eldest child, Ilias. "Motherhood, to me, has been the ultimate surrender and is the most extraordinary lesson," she said. "It requires so much deep internal work. It means letting go of so many of the expectations and ideas I had about what motherhood might be like, and doing my best to show up for my children as best as I possibly can, while trying to hold deep compassion for my shortcomings and mistakes."

Danielle Villasana photographed her husband holding their newborn daughter at their apartment in Istanbul. "For me, as a new mother, it's been an awakening to a new world, a new life, a new way of thinking and one that is rooted in profound love for my daughter," she said. "There's nothing that could have ever prepared me for motherhood — no amount of reading or watching YouTube videos or talking with others. After my daughter was born, I quickly realized I had to go through it myself to truly understand."

Jyotsna Bhamidipati said she loves getting in the frame with her daughter when she can. "Staying home with my daughter during the pandemic while managing two other older kids at home who were taking online classes and managing my photography business, all seem to intermix," she said. "One thing that was a highlight though was how staying home definitely brought us closer together."

Jenna Pfueller lost her job during the pandemic and began getting weekly food pantry items from her children's school in Portland, Maine, including sugary cereals they had never eaten before. "This was a source of anxiety for me but a completely joyous discovery for them, one of the few foods they'd look forward to seeing in each week's box," she said. When a bowl of Froot Loops spilled one morning, she went to clean it up but instead pulled out her camera. "It felt perfect. Beautiful. Too pretty to ignore," she said. "A weirdly wonderful celebration of this new messy life we were in together as a family in this strange new world, whether we liked it or not."

Amy Toensing photographed her daughter, Elsa, chasing a kite flown by her husband. "We were fortunate enough to become a family through adoption," she said. "Being a mom challenges, fulfills and humbles me every day. My daughter has opened my world and makes me want to know more about myself so I can be more present with her. She is the love of my life."

Sarah Pabst's daughter, Elena, smells the roses at her parents' house near Cologne, Germany. "We had arrived a month earlier from Argentina for our summer visit, escaping the rising Covid curve in our South American home country, and due to the impending birth of her baby brother," the photographer said. "My children remind me every day of the beauty in small things, the never-ending force of discovery, and the magic in the ordinary."

Anna Rathkopf was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 37. Her son was 3 years old at that time. "I was amazed at how much strength I could find in hugging my son," she said. "Holding him and thinking: 'I would do anything for you. Just to stay alive and see you grow up.' "

Lisha Zulkepli photographed her children during the pandemic as they navigated being confined to their home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "Motherhood is eating peanut butter toast you made because they wanted oatmeal instead, your oatmeal, and preparing lunches and dinners in your head for the rest of the week," she said. "Motherhood is crying with them and laughing with them, often at the same time. Motherhood is spring, summer, winter and autumn, all in one day. It is hurricanes and tornadoes, tsunamis and heat waves all rolled into one, per child. ... It is an exhausting and scary and, sometimes, a very lonely path. And more often than you care to notice, motherhood is the only reason you wake up in the morning."

Norwegian photographer Malin Westermann documented her pregnancy and journey through motherhood. "Being a mother means being completely and totally overwhelmed by love, joy, responsibility and selflessness," she said. "Motherhood has made my life more colorful than I ever knew it could be."