What new aspects about the role of a mother have you discovered recently? 

Fill in the blank 
Mothering as (    )

For example, the artist Annie Hsiao-ching Wang’s work is titled:

“The Mother As a Creator”

Take 3 photos of the space or objects that grab your attention. 

Step 2 Take 7 mins

Choose one object

Why were you attracted to photograph it? What does this object mean to you?

What does it say about you? Your family? Can it be a metaphor for something ?

VARIATION: 
You can start with brainstorming first. Take three objects or spaces and find 3 meaning/associations for each one. Find 3 more. Then choose one object and move onto Step 3

Step 3 Now take a new photograph with this element in the picture. Think about light, colour, texture, and composition that can lead the viewer to get to the story you are trying to say. 

How does mothering make you question or transform (or not) your relationship to yourself?

*The image can be a single image or a series of a few images.

So it work brings out in us all ranges of emotions.  Joy, sadness, anger, fear, regret, peacefulness, jealousy, bliss, gratitude, simple contentment, guilt, and shame, you name it, we experience all, something in just 24 hours. 

This weeks assignment is to press the shutter button when you are feeling rather bad for whatever reason. 

Notice what what/who is around you and what you are doing. Take pictures of these things that you mentally note. 

Then simply note down on a piece of paper (or on your phone)  the date, time, and what you are feeling. 

On another day (preferably a few days later)  go back to those pictures and write down everything you see in the picture and what you understand about what you were feeling at that moment. See if you discover something new about your emotions from the pictures. 

Feel free to post some of your pictures from this assignment to "Our Works" wall.

How would we capture the moments of  the hard things of mothering

For example,

Dealing with ungratefulness in our children

Coaching our children’s emotion or failing to do so

Being pushed off my edge 

When mommy messes up 

regret… Shame… guilt… anxiety… Jealousy, a sense of inadequacy….. 

List goes on...

For the next few days, set your intention to pay more attention to the person you love using the camera as a tool. 

Step 1.

Explain to the person that you are taking snapshots of his or her moments as an effort to love him or her more. Tell him or her that you will get their permission if you ever share the photo. 

Step 2.

Take five or more pictures of the person per day for three days. 

Capture a moment of your person when he or she is alone, doing the daily routine, or engaging with you.  

Step 3.

After three days of shooting, look at the photos you have taken and see if you have discovered something new about the person or something you didn’t know about your relationship to the person. 

Step 4.

Choose a picture that you want to post on our community board and ask for the permission from your person. If the person doesn’t agree, think about writing down what the photo was about. 

Mothering is nurturing and supporting others to grow and growing ourselves through the process of meeting the challenges that come with it.

 

Mothering surely allows us to meet our edges. 

Or shall we say it pushes us off our edges? 

 

What is your edge right now in your life?

What is calling you, what is challenging, what is opening?

 

How is mothering stretching me and helping me to grow as a human being?

Each person on his or her journey, challenges and struggles are unique. 

We have been learning and are still learning 

 

To overcome / accept / live with

Imperfections, discomfort in specific social settings, need to please others

 

We face fears

 

We are stretched on all sides

 

Mothering is deconstruction 

 

Learning to free ourselves

So only then we can free everyone around us

 

To show mercy to ourselves

 

To take time to grieve big and small deaths 

-       Including death of our youthful dreams

 

To be okay to be not okay 

 

Create a set of photographs that attempt to capture the feeling of being on the edge of something. This work might relate to a looming experience, a hope or fear, a pending decision or a significant change.

 

Alternatively, your responses might stem from adventurous explorations - views from the familiar to the strange, the permitted to the forbidden, from the outside looking in (or vice versa). ?

 

How might you use photography to draw attention to ‘everyday’ edges - the seemingly mundane corners, borders and boundaries that tend to pass unnoticed? For example, consider table-tops, sinks, steps, gutters, doorways, fences, road-markings etc. How might you use your camera to collect, categorise and order, or alternatively, to abstract, flatten and distort? 

 

Some useful words: Boundary, threshold, periphery, verge; anticipation, apprehension, tension; contrast, juxtaposition, conflicting

 

 

You might be interested in: 

Dafna Talmor, Obstructed Views, 2018

https://www.photopedagogy.com/uploads/5/0/0/9/50097419/version_3__a_new_europe__edges_.pdf