Anne Geddes, a 68-year-old Australian photographer, has been inspiring the world for decades. Her whimsical photographs capture babies nestled among blooms, costumed as fairies, or posed with imaginative accessories. Born in 1956, Geddes spent her childhood on a 10,500-hectare cattle ranch in Queensland. Her formative experiences with nature, family, art and identity helped to inform her artistic vision. While we’ll miss her, she’s beginning an exhilarating new phase of her professional life. For her, a big retrospective currently on view in the New Art Museum in Tuebingen, Germany.
Geddes’ artistic career was born out of the experience and celebration of new parenthood. It’s when she began photographing newborns for parents wanting to freeze time on their little ones’ first days on earth. To pull it off, she spent weeks in her garage building elaborate sets and puppets. Geddes would go to great lengths to try new quirky props, a testament to her know-no-boundaries approach to photographing children.
Utilizing a giant Polaroid camera for some of her shoots, Geddes became known for her unique style that highlighted the innocence and purity of childhood. Getting the picture perfect shot was not an easy task. Frequently, she needed to shoot several babies as insurance, shooting as many as 20 infants in a single session. This detailed process meant she was able to make true portraits of each child in her colorful imaginary worlds.
To keep everything safe and comfortable, Geddes’ rule was to always have the parents on set for photo shoots. Through her practice, she learned the value of trust and collaboration by gaining their permission for each photograph, a necessity that became a mark of her work. Her commitment to ethical representation has played a big role in the continued success of her images.
One of Geddes’ most iconic series is “Down in the Garden,” a collection of portraits of naked babies with copious greenery and flowers. This beautiful collection is a testament to her unique ability to combine the beauty of nature with the purity of childhood. Her luxurious arrangements really knock people out. Her work has broken out of traditional photography realms, found on every continent in calendars, posters, books, and magazines. Geddes has sold more than 10 million calendars and almost that many of her seven coffee-table books. This landmark feat and the popularity extended to her by audiences have made her a darling of the contemporary art world.
In addition to her commercial success, Geddes has collaborated with renowned artists such as Céline Dion on projects like “Miracle: A Celebration of New Life.” This collaboration reflects her passion for celebrating the beauty of new beginnings and the profound connection between parents and their children.
As she looks back on her career, Geddes admits that the situations she encountered with such young children made her job difficult. “Connecting with a child who considers you a stranger is high stress,” she admits. She has an impressive grasp of infant behavior that informs her approach. That’s why she likes to shoot babies under four weeks old, because they tend to be happier and more pliable at that age. “If they’re full of milk and warm, they’ll sleep,” she notes.
Geddes’ photographs are not just a source of pure nostalgic joy. They can make us laugh and recapture our inner child. She humorously observes the irony of political figures, stating, “You look at these tyrants that are running rampant [in politics] and think: they were once newborns. What happened? Why didn’t your mothers just tell you to sit down and behave?”
A few might question the aesthetic merit of her creations. Geddes really can’t be accused of any one-size-fits-all approach, for isolating what it means to be a child is an undeniable art. “This subject of mine is not deemed to be art and that’s been evident throughout my career,” she explained. Even as she downplays this perception, her ability to make you feel sense of beauty, melancholy, longing and wonder through her photography demonstrates the weight of its influence.
In recent weeks, Geddes launched an effort to re-establish contact with the babies she photographed 30 years ago. A good number of these wee ones are now in their thirties and parents themselves! This initiative is evidence of her dedication to fostering connections that go beyond the frame. “I know a lot of people talk about having their babies online or not having them online, but this sort of work is not exposing the babies personally,” she emphasizes.