A dedication to mothers and fathers
With Mother’s Day on 8th May and Father’s Day on 18th June, this article picks out a number of photographs that illustrate the love of parents to their children. It is said that a camera reveals the truest emotions. These photographers managed to capture the purest and most natural love, grace and strength of a parent.
Robert Frank, one of the most acclaimed photographers of the 20th century, was best known for his book The Americans (1958), which features photographs the artist took in the mid-1950s as he travelled across the United States. His photographs tend to feature a diverse range of iconic American symbols, transcending a sense of alienation, economic hardship, and racial strife. But images of the mother-child duo stood out from his usual style; they transcended a sense of common humanity instead of alienation, a kind of oneness in human experiences throughout the world.
Another photographer whose photographs have been highly acclaimed is that of Elliott Erwitt, a French-born American photographer known for his uncanny ability to capture on film the humour and irony of everyday life. These snapshot of himself, his wife and baby were taken in 1953, when Elliott Erwitt was starting a family in his home of New York City. His images have since become recognized as a classic example of photography in the humanist tradition.
One of the most powerful images of parenthood is by Wayne Miller, it depicts the moment of birth—a doctor bringing into the world a baby boy, still attached to his mother by the umbilical cord, glistening with amniotic fluid and as yet unaware that a fundamental change has taken place. It also marks the beginning of parenthood. It took three generations to make produce such a powerful photograph: the baby boy David Miller, baby’s father Wayne Miller behind the camera and doctor Harold Wayne Miller, the baby’s grandfather.
Miller also taken a couple of intimate black and white photographs, capturing the emotional complexity of parenthood as an essential depiction of human experiences.
To conclude, we’d like to thank all mothers and fathers who’ve worked hard, pouring out their hearts and souls to give us life. Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Father’s Day!
