Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 5, 1990 TAG: 9007040116
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TONI WILLIAMS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Nurses maneuvered me onto the birthing bed and made hurried preparations. Someone suggested that I try to wait for the doctor's arrival before giving birth.
Andy held my hand. When I managed to focus on him, I saw only his blue eyes, glistening with love and concern, above the mask.
"Did someone call the photographer?" I asked.
This was no ordinary photographer. Nationally renowned photographic artist Sally Mann, though ill with laryngitis, had left her midnight bed and was on the way.
"I guess I take the pictures because it's such a thrill," Mann said later. "It's a real joy to see the babies come out. But I tell people that I do it because it's good contraception. That's one baby I didn't have to have. It's like having them yourself. Only it doesn't hurt."
Mann, 39, is enjoying success earned after 20 years of art photography. She has published two books, "Second Sight," (Godine, 1983) and "At Twelve - Portraits of Young Women" (Aperture, 1988). She teaches, lectures, and exhibits widely. Her photographs are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, among others and her work has appeared in two recent special issues of Life magazine.
She lives with her husband and three children in Lexington, her hometown, and is a familiar presence in the hospital's birthing room, where she had her own children and has photographed about 20 births.
Mann is not timid about approaching pregnant women, even strangers, to offer this free service.
Recently, I talked with Mann about the process of photographing births. We discussed the pictures of the arrival of my now 4-year-old daughter and other children. When I arrived at her home, she emerged from her darkroom and good-naturedly grumbled about being there for the rest of her life to catch up on the prints she owes people. She brought some prints along to touch up while we talked.
The house hums with life. Tucked among lush plants are birdcages housing multicolored, singing finches. Purple orchids bloom. A cockateel perchs on my welcoming shoulder. Succulents grope their way toward the ceiling. Kate Wolf sings from the stereo. Four-year-old Virginia charms me. The telephone rings. More children arrive home from school.
Mann appeared unruffled, but never did get to work on the prints in her lap. Once she started talking, she leaned back and let the words spill out.
"I've always had the suspicion that human birth is an impossibility - that maybe photographically I could discover what medical sleight of hand it is that allows this baby relatively free access through an impossibly small opening. It still amazes me. A baby will be coming out and I'll forget to take pictures. I'll be saying, `How does this happen?' "
Mann had pictures taken at the births of all her own children, and even took some herself at her youngest child's birth. By setting up and focusing the camera before labor began, she was able to click the shutter release at the precise moment when the baby emerged.
The first birth pictures Sally took of someone else occurred with a fairly "conventional" couple she knew casually. This first experience, though moving, wasn't the most memorable. "The simple labors like that first one that was quick and seemingly painless are the most forgettable," Mann said. "Without experiencing the terrible pain and the long duration, a birth doesn't stick in your mind quite like those where you're not sure if the baby will ever get out."
She did have a moment of concern there. "Have you ever seen a baby being born?" Mann asks. "When they first come out their head is really wrinkled and squashed. When I saw that baby's head I couldn't believe how bad it looked! I thought, `Oh my God, here I am at my first birth and there's something horribly wrong with this baby!' "
When she's finished photographing a birth, Mann generally drops the 35-millimeter film she's shot into the mother's bag and leaves quietly. She may never see the pictures. Mann said she doesn't print them herself because her darkroom is set up for 8- by 10-inch negatives. Besides, "it's such a personal thing, particularly once the birth is over and you've caught the tender moments," Mann said. "Then there's exhaustion and happiness and togetherness, and that's even more private than delivery somehow. So I try and stay out of people's way."
During the birth, she's a little more of a presence. "At first I was timid because I didn't want to lose the trust of the woman laboring there," Mann said. "But I found that when you're in labor, you don't care. I saw that if I insinuated myself into the labor in simple ways like bringing a glass of water to the father, they didn't mind. It becomes sort of a team effort once you're in the room."
Mann said she actually photographs only half of the births she offers to shoot. It's not unusual, she said, for a couple to become too busy to call her once labor begins. Or some decide they don't want someone else there. Mann said she understands. "I wasn't sure that I wanted to be photographed my first time either, because I was afraid that I wouldn't behave well. It's a big leap of faith to bring in someone."
Nurse practitioner Mary Winston knew she wanted Mann to record the birth of her first child. She'd seen how oblivious laboring women were and knew that she'd need her husband David with her, not taking pictures. She recalls little about Sally's five-hour presence. "I don't even remember hearing the camera click. She was very peripheral," Winston said.
"I love my pictures. They're not the kind of thing I share with many people. I told my mother about having a photographer there and she was grossed out. She couldn't believe that I was having pictures of that. But after I showed her the `censored' ones she thought they were great."
The most intense birth for Mann involved an 18-hour labor. "By the time she had that baby, we were exalted, triumphant and so exhausted. I wanted to hug and kiss and pat her all over. I was so proud of her." Mann printed the pictures herself, explaining, "I wanted to see them because they were so moving, and I sent them to the doctor - I never knew the people's names."
The tension of the delivery room takes its toll on Mann occasionally. She tells of a moment during a birth where the mother was working very hard. "You could see the baby's head. The mother was pushing and pushing. I was taking pictures when I realized I was throwing up in a trash can. Awful! All the nurses rushed over . . . [The mother was giving birth] and I was retching in the corner.
"I get nauseous at any scene of violence, even in movies, and any scene of extreme duress - physical or mental. So I'm always fighting nausea when I'm taking these pictures. I have to turn away a lot."
She doubts she would photograph births if she hadn't had children herself. "It seems like all my photographs address the issues of paradox or the peculiar. . . . Delivery has got to be one of the greatest contradictions in the world, that so much love and tenderness can come out of so much pain. It presents all sides of human nature that I think are pretty curious. But I know that I wouldn't photograph it with quite the degree of compassion if I hadn't had my own kids."
Sally has found some births entertaining. "I can remember having as much fun in a birthing room as at a good cocktail party - just the level of humor and excitement. The Peck delivery was one of the funniest. The banter between them amused me," she says.
She photographed Dawn and Tom Peck at the birth of their fourth child, a daughter. Dawn's mother was at the birth, as was the couple's 10-year-old son, Ben.
"It was a family event. Everyone held the baby as soon as it was born. There weren't any feelings of `yuck,' " Mann said.
There have been tense moments in the birthing room, like the time a baby was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck.
Though the child was eventually OK, "God, it was scary, and the mother didn't know," Mann said. "The baby was dark blue."
Mann said she would like to witness a Caesarean section, saying that "the idea of plucking a baby fully formed" intrigues her. Twins and a home birth would be fun to watch, too.
She was invited to witness a home birth, but the child arrived so quickly that not even the midwife got there on time. "I'd wanted to see that, because it would've invited all kinds of new elements," Mann said.
Mann said she has no plans for making a project out of these pictures, saying it has already been done. "I have thought about it though," she said. "Of course, all art has already been done, and the great challenge is to do it in some kind of new way."
In most of her work, Mann sets up or composes the photos. These birth pictures are the only documentation she does these days. "I love doing it. It's easier than setting up pictures in many ways, because serendipity is at play, so you have chance on your side," she explains.
When Sally offered to photograph the birth of my daughter I was excited yet apprehensive. Would I want this sleek, sophisticated artist watching me, a writhing, beached whale.
I'd seen some birth pictures she had taken, which the parents were thrilled to have. And since this was my second child, I knew that modesty played a small role in childbirth. My Lamaze teacher was right when she said that a troop of VMI cadets could march through the room and you could care less.
Andy called Mann the morning that my labor began. Her voice was a croaky whisper due to an infection, but she wanted to come. She called us several times and even offered to bring food. When we rushed to the hospital that evening, a friend called Mann.
In the midst of my panting and blowing, I heard someone say that Mann had arrived there, but I was barely aware of her. My daughter was born quickly, and Mann stayed no more than an hour.
Mann remembers the birth as perfect and mostly uneventful.
"How basically simple . . . there were no glitches . . . other than having my [car] battery run dead at the end of it. I'd left my car lights on. I had to walk home."
This was a surpise to me. I reminded her that it was cold that night and she had been sick. "It didn't matter," Mann laughed. "I flew home."
by CNB