July 2009

The superior method for learning a foreign language is actually simple, obvious, and ironically, the most enjoyable — fall in love with someone who speaks the language. Linguists have observed that it cuts years off the process.

It's why the simplest, most obvious, and ironically most enjoyable time to learn photography is at the birth of a baby. A wedding would probably be a close second if anyone photographed their own, but it's rare.

If you're one of those countless self-proclaimed bad photographers you can ride the wave of wanting to document that beautiful child's life all the way to photographic accomplishment. You can take the satisfaction of having created beauty in the face of diversity to your grave — and I mean that in the most upbeat, congratulatory way.

This website is for people with less than perfect cameras and an angel in the crib. There are two things you need to do at this crazy, stressed-out time in your life to make your point-and-shoot sing:

1. Keep your photographic method simple.

2. Love your baby.

I will do what I can to help with the photographic method. I am assuming you will have no problem with #2.

Anna Quindlen is a famous Pulitzer Prize–winning author. For several years, she wrote a column for The New York Times called Public and Private. One day she would write about world affairs and the next day she would write about what the other mothers in her baby group were talking about. Anyone who read Anna’s column knew Anna loved babies.

I had a set of baby photographs and needed a writer. Four women in my life independently suggested that Anna Quindlen was perfect. I knew somebody who knew somebody and I got her home telephone number. I cold-called her. It went something like this:

“Anna, my name is Nick Kelsh. We’ve never met. We have mutual friends.” (To quote Huckleberry Finn, “That was a stretcher.”) “I have a set of photographs,” I said.

Please understand that Anna is a lovely person. She did try to give me the heave-ho, however.

“I’m sure they’re perfectly wonderful photographs. I couldn’t possibly take on another project,” she said.

I came back with, “Could you just look at the pictures?”

I heard a sigh and just to get rid of me she said, “Sure, I’ll look at the pictures.”

We were on the phone for all of 45 seconds. I never even got around to telling her they were pictures of babies. I FedEx’d her ten prints and the next day she sent me one of my all-time favorite emails. It went something like this: (Actually, it was much better written than this. She is, after all, Anna Quindlen.)

“Why didn’t you tell me they were pictures of babies? Of course I have to do this project. When do we start?”

Right from the start, she totally got what this was all about. Close-ups of angelic bodies through the eyes of a parent. Anna and I both knew that when you have a baby of your own it’s like seeing a human being for the first time.

In the end we did two books together — Naked Babies and Siblings. We were on Oprah! and The Today Show a couple of times each.

This is one of the original photographs I sent Anna. It pretty much sums up the feeling for the whole project — an attempt to take a new look at timeless perfection.

It was 3:30 a.m. I had a big job that day and had to be pulling out of the driveway by six. Our baby had been crying for too long and needed comforting. It was my turn. I really did not need this.

He was hot and rigid when I picked him up. Finally, finally, after a neck-cramping thirty minutes, he relaxed and surrendered to sleep on my shoulder. Any parent knows how carefully I placed him back in his crib and tucked in his blanket. I let both of my warm hands linger on his back for a last moment of comfort and then let him go. It was probably 4:30 now. I could have gone back to bed and stolen another hour of precious, beautiful sleep, but I did not.

I just stared. I remember resting my head on the crib rail marveling at the landscape of his ears and the perfection of his nose and eyelashes and cowlick. I could see his lips breastfeeding in his dreams. Like watching waves break on the shore, I was transfixed by the almost invisible pulsing of the blanket on his chest.

I wanted to save him from everything and could only hear the gods laughing.

I wondered if daddy lions ever paused to feel this or if this was a human-only moment.

Where was I getting the energy to not only keep my eyes open but to ponder the galaxy that was my son?

Why do we photograph our babies? I guess the simple answer is that we love them. It seems silly to say it out loud. But later, when we're wrestling with our camera settings, it will keep us going.