Abstract
This essay presents a reflective and critical investigation into the relationship between photographs of children and maternal experience. It employs Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida as a model for the project’s structure, style, and methodology; accordingly, images represent sites of inquiry and discovery within the text. In 20 sections, images, reflections, theories, and anecdotes are pieced together to perform an analysis of domestic photography in an attempt to access the essence of motherhood and understand what that essence demands of and means for mothers. The critical apparatus consists of scholarship related to vernacular photography, family photography, feminist motherhood, and critical theory. The essay argues that photography in the digital age ultimately dissolves distinctions between mother and child, image and identity, and reproduction and representation. At the same time, it considers the inventive potential of photographs and photographic practices to reclaim and validate personal understandings of motherhood.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
