Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Hidden Mother









 



 


 

  

In years past, back when the camera was still young and demanding and children were right to be terrified of submitting to it's remorseless eye, there existed a curious practice known as hidden mother photography. Wriggling hapless brats, meant to have been captured in solitary dignity, were calmed by the "unseen" presence of their veiled mothers. These tricky mothers attempted to become ambient background space through diversion, camouflage or disappearance. It's anyone's guess how this even worked in considering how it often transformed the mother figure into a sort of cloaked wraith. Sometimes cats even showed up during these troubled times.



1 comment:

  1. Despite the fact that practice was well intending, probably practical and common from the looks of it, it seems so creepy now. In our day of smartphone (dumbphone in some cases) snapshots hidden mother photography seems like an allegory to something ghastly and just ready to tax our imagination.

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