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Mom has had a huge impact on my creative life. It has always seemed important to me that she is an interior decorator. I remember when I was a little kid I would "redecorate" my room about every month. One time I made a sort of scarecrow figure that I hung from my bedroom ceiling. Mom didn't mind. She even seemed proud.
That is the most important thing. She (and Dad) always supported my bizarre experiments. I had to stumble around a lot to find my path as an artist. Our basement became a painting studio, then later a darkroom. I made a lot of rubbish. But I was always met with support and even pride.
I'm notorious in our family for not taking family pictures. It is a little hard to explain, but I guess it is a case of "the cobbler's kids have no shoes." But every now and then I experiment with photographing someone in my family. About ten years ago I took a picture of mom. I put her in the couch with all of the family photographs behind her (that is me on the lower right). Looking at it now, I guess you could say that this is a picture of an interior decorator and the influence she had on her photographer son.
George Steinmetz
My parents were divorced when I was very little and I grew up with my mom. She wasn't keen on me becoming a photographer. She told me that all photographers had bad breath and B.O. I told her then maybe I could be successful. I started my photography career by hitchhiking through Africa for two and a half years. I grew up in Beverly Hills and dropped out of Stanford for the trip. Mom refused to let me go, but the trip was funded with my own hard-earned money, so I went anyway. I mailed rolls of film back to her from post offices in various African capitals. Mom then dutifully processed the slides at the local camera shop and then stamped and sent me detailed reviews. She was my first and greatest fan. Now that I'm a successful photographer with over 20 stories in National Geographic Magazine, she does a lot of bragging. My first book is coming out this fall, a compilation of aerial photos from Africa, and it's dedicated to her (and, of course, my wife).
I don't photograph Mom much. She is a bit stiff when I pull out a camera, and I never was in the habit of taking photos of my parents or siblings. But as I've three kids of my own now, I have gotten into the habit of taking more family photos. This photo is one of mom from a visit to Pasadena, California, just after Christmas.
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
I am quite lucky to have a mother who always encouraged me to pursue whatever I was interested in. The arts were a big part of my family's life growing up ... my mother is a pianist and a Charles Ives specialist, with a doctorate in Musical Arts. I didn't inherit my mother's music gene, but when I got interested in film and photography in my teens, both of my parents were enthusiastically supportive.
It's ironic how much my mother has had an impact on the project that I have been focusing on for the last two years. In 1951, my mother founded The Fine Arts Conservatory, the first integrated school in the South for music, art, and dance. This was courageous and controversial, as blacks and whites were totally segregated then, and especially in Miami, Florida. Because of her little music school, both of my parents were blacklisted and labeled communists. Today, 56 years later, I've directed and co-produced The Black List Project ... a film, book, and museum portrait exhibition tour that examines race, culture and the seeds of success among African Americans in America.
I've taken a number of portraits of my mother over the years, but my favorite image is of the two of us. I shot it for the cover of the now defunct Marquee Magazine in Miami. It was for their mother's day issue and I was asked to photograph prominent Miamians in the arts ... with their mothers!
Lynn Goldsmith
I dedicated one of my books, PhotoDiary, to my mom because as the daughter of a single mother in the 1950's, I feel very fortunate to have been brought up knowing that not all women were meant to get married and have children. There are choices. She told me to "live, live, live."
Mary Ellen Mark
My mother died at the very beginning of my life as a photographer. I didn't actually photograph her, but [this] is a photograph of her as a young woman that I really love.
Alessandra Sanguinetti
My mother's coffee table was crucial to my discovering photography. I was 9 years old, just starting to pay attention to books, and on that table and the lowest bookshelves where I could reach, she had books by Dorothea Lange, Chim, Lartigue, Wisconsin Death Trip, a book of The Best of Life, and Boticelli and Caravaggio postcard books. I was enthralled by them, especially Wisconsin Death Trip, which my aunt had given her. Those books incited me to ask for my first camera, which she gave me for Christmas. I haven't really photographed my mother aside from the usual family snapshots. There is one photograph which I have lost, but treasure. I am four years old I think, and we're standing on the street in Buenos Aires and I'm clinging to her leg and she has her hand on my head in a very loving and gentle gesture.
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