Fine Art Photography Daily

2011 LENSCRATCH Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! Exhibition

I was thinking about Mother’s Day earlier in the week, thinking about how both my kids are now living in the Big Apple while I live in the Big Avocado and we won’t be enjoying any Guacamole and Chips together this year, and how my own mom is probably busy with my dad in heaven working on their margaritas, so there was a moment, just a moment, of sadness, when I realized I wouldn’t be getting any physical hugs on Mother’s Day (my husband has made it clear that I am not his mother). I decided instead to cast a net out into our photo community and get busy celebrating everyone ‘s mothers…and the result and response actually brought tears to my eyes. Thank you so much for making my Mother’s Day richer, and for sharing some wonderful memories of your mothers with the world. Thanks to those who shared the quirkier side of your mothers, probably exposing more than they would have liked. Here is a toast to the women that made us see the world with compassion and curiosity!

My mother, Katrine Kleihauer Smithson, definitely had a public and a private side, and the private side was the best–funny and irreverent, warm and loving. The public side wore a girdle and and an chronic up-do and was elegant and hard working. She gave my sister and me some fantastic gifts: unconditional love and a sense of humor. When I became a photographer, she suffered a bit because of those two gifts…she loved me enough to be my model, and had enough humor to allow herself to be slightly humiliated.

She was wearing a straight jacket in the last roll of film I took of her at 85, in some ways a fitting ending to our collaborations. Tom Chambers and I created this image for a collaborative exhibition at Wallspace Gallery some years back.

Thank you Mom, for shaping who I was and allowing me to become who I am.

The 2011 Lenscratch Mother’s Day Exhibition

Ahmer Inam, Mother: Husnara Begum, Hendersonville, NC

Nancy McLeod, Mother: Barbara MacLeod, taken at a Delta Zeta Sorority Party in 1952 at UCLA

Barbara Ciurej, Mother: Betty Ciurej, Kitchen in Evergreen Park, Illinois, “It’s an image I took in 1978 but a great tribute to my mother’s baking skills and how immensely supportive she was of whatever I undertook, even though she was totally bewildered by what I was doing.

Amy Schireson, Mother: Ruth Schireson Levin, 97, Los Angeles, CA, Holding a photo her herself and her husband

Mimi Haddon, Grandmother: Lilian Haddon, Glendale, CA

Ken Taylor, Mother: Inga Taylor, in her empty apartment in Windsor, Canada

Cooper Buckman, Mother: Rachel Buckman, Photographed by Brad Buckman, Today’s Mama, Los Angeles, CA

Erica Martin, Mother: The Honorable Bonnie Lee Martin, Los Angeles, CA, “She was told by a college counselor that a woman would never be able to be a lawyer. So she became a judge.”

Erica Martin, Mother: Bonnie Lee Martin, Ogden, UT

Laurie McCormick, Mother: Lora, Yonkers, NY

Jacqueline Bates, Mother: Nina Colosi, New York NY

Jesse Rieser, Mother: Stephanie Rieser, Springfield, Missouri
“In this portrait, My mother is standing in her gardens at our old home in Springfield, Missouri. She is a painting instructor so for as long as I can remember she had her summers off and nothing made her happier than to work in her garden. Being this was 2 days before the movers came and knowing she is moving to the desert, the image says many things. Her last stand if you will with the things she has known and loved living her whole life in the midwest. But also a moment to say goodbye as she looks peaceful and embraced by the vegetation while her knuckles are tightly gripping the handle of my grandfather’s shovel.”

Kelli Sanderson, Mother: Pattie Sanderson, Vancouver, B.C.

Vito Pasquale, Mother: Lena Gonsalves, 1964 NY World’s Fair – unisphere

Mary Ann Lynch, Mother: Flora Bowman 1940, Cream of the Crop, Greenfield Center NY, “combining family photograph and a page from my mother’s scrapbooks on movie stars. . .from a time she still had dreams of something she couldn’t even verbalize. . . that her fate would deny her”

Panos Lambrou, Mother: Maria Lambrou, Port Said, Egypt

Sandra Louise Dyas, Mother: Doris Mae Dyas, Andrew, Iowa – our homestead farm, 2010

Sylvia de Swann, Mother: Etka Neuman Strum, “My mother, Etka Neuman Strum was a survivor of the Holocaust who died in 1969. I took this photograph in 1994 en route to Krakow, as part of “Return,” a project to explore personal history, memory and war.”

Judy Sherrod, Mother: Sarabeth Sherrod Boddy, Vietnam, “Here’s one of my mom, Sarabeth Sherrod Boddy, in Vietnam. Yes, those are her ashes in a pill bottle, and she is wearing a coolie hat. You know, she always loved to travel, so why let a little thing like death slow her down? It’s a pleasure to report that I have sprinkled her ashes on every continent but Australia. Going there next. We were a little hesitant about Antarctica because Sarabeth hated the cold. But we figured she’s been through fire now so she should be eternally warm, right? “

Linda Plaisted, Mother:Patricia Beatty Plaisted, 1933-2002, “Patrician;” a meeting between my mother and my daughter Emerson who never met in life.

Juan Luis Garcia, Mother: Maria Elena Garcia, Southern California, Portrait of my Mother and Sister on Mother’s Day a few years ago

Alek Lindus, Mother: Branka, Paris 1967

Jeannette Montgomery Barron, Mother: Ellie, Wyoming around 1970
****be sure to check out Jeannette’s series on “My Mother’s Clothes”

Joanna Black, Mum: Genowefa (Blue Mum on the left!), Dalhousie Castle, Marketing Event For Guest House Ladies, Scotland

Ron Resnick, Mother: Ruth Resnick, Ruth in the Juniper bushes, Arthur B. Ripley State Park, Lancaster, CA

Karen Florek, Mother: Elenor, Elenor’s Wedding Day, 1952, Detroit, Michigan

Ann Pallesen, Mother: Diane Pallesen, Floating, Fresno , CA

Ann Pallesen, Mother: Diane Pallesen, Formal Dress, Lakewood, CO, Fresno , CA

Jami Saunders, Mother: Jo-Ann Saunders, Puerto Rico

Jordanna Kalman, Mother: Avis, New York

Paris Visone, Mother: Lisa Visone, Peabody, MA in Forever 21

Sara Jane Boyers, Mother: Jeanne Ann Weiss Ziering, Detroit 1944/5 b1913 d2009

Donna Rosser, Mother:Nancy Ferguson King, Taken at Prom, Stafford High School, Stafford, Virginia (on the left facing the camera)

Gloria Baker Feinstein, Mother: Anita Roos Baker, Lexinton, Kentucky, 1963

Fran Foreman, Mother: Roz Michelson Forman, Pennsylvania

Deanna Dikeman, Mother: Corrine Dikeman, Sioux City, Iowa

Angela Bacon-Kidwell, Mother: Linda Bacon, Dominant Trait, Christmas Eve 2009

Sahara Marina Borja, Mother: Laura Susan Paull, behind Mom’s house in Modesto, California, December 2009

Jade Doskow, Mother: Louise Robinson Doskow, ‘The Perky Palace,’ Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania, 2008

Scott Neumyer, Mother: Sharon, Spotswood, NJ

Dana De Luca, Mother: Natalina, Milan, Italy

Catharine Amato, Mother: Joan Gibbs, Adriatic coast in Italy

Ellen Jantzen, Mother (in-law): Patricia Jantzen, rural Illinois, in her backyard before she broke her hip, before she had to sell her home and before she moved into an assisted living facility

Nancy Baron, Mother: Margaret Brooks, Chicago, Illinois

Claire Mallett, Mother: Valerie Mallett, Berkshire, England

Priya Kambli, Title: Muma (Turmeric), Kirksville, MO

Karin Crona, Mother: Gunilla Nyberg, Uppsala, Sweden

Grace Weston, Mother: Ann O’Keefe, Rahway, NJ

Bruce Long, Mother: Jan Long, Photo: c1971, Warabri, Central Australia

Jennifer Kaczmarek, Mother: Debbie Martinez, with my daughter Bella. In the house I grew up in, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Jennifer Kaczmarek, Mother-in-law, Paulette Kaczmarek “Paul”. My house, Palm Coast, FL

Heidi Lender, Mother: Helaine, New Haven, CT

Balázs Sprenc, Mother: Terézia Proksa, Szigetbecse, Hungary

Joni Sternbach, Mother: Claire, my mom as a bride pasted on my brother’s heart in a picture of her three grown children, 1942 for my mom, 1970’s for us

Jane Heller, Mother: Susan Heller, Quebec, Canada

Honey Lazar, Mother: Leah Jessop, a Photo Studio in 1914

Natalie Obermaier, Mother: Cynthia Obermaier, Heaver Things Remain, Costa Rica

Mariana González, Mother: Julia, Santiago, Chile, 2008

Anne Berry, Mother: Sissie Jarrell, Atlanta, GA

Erika Gentry, Mother: Diane Berentsen born 1946, Portland, Oregon

Tom M. Johnson, Mother: Irene V Johnson, Lakewood, CA

Brian Faini, Mother: Shirley, North Carolina

Submitted by: Russell Joslin, Photograph by: Arnold Joslin (my dad), Mother: Joan Joslin, Unknown location

Marla H Bane, Mother: Lois Bane Ross, NYC circa 1957

Louise Weinberg, Mother: Nancy Weinberg at 85, Bakers Square Restaurant, Chicago, IL

Adam Neese, Mother: Sara Neese,Our home, Grapevine Texas

Photographed by Ellen Rennard (at age 17), Mother: Gretchen Eifrig, River Forest, IL, 1971


Meredith Winn, Mother: Amity Allen, San Diego, CA 1971

Helen K. Garber, Mother: Geri Kolikow – 86, Brooklyn, NY, 1971

Ken Rosenthal, Mother: Elaine Rosenthal, Encino, CA

Loretta Ayeroff, Mother: Pauline Ayeroff, 1946, Honeymoon, somewhere near San Juan Capistrano, CA

Michael Kirchoff, Mother: Darlene, At Home, Rosemead, CA

Wendy Claypool, Mother: Jan, At Work, Burbank, CA

Lisa Levine, Mother: Arlene Love Mandeltort, “Brighton Beach Was Never Venice”, “Brighton Beach Was Never Venice”, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NY

Terri Hartman, Mother: Jean Hartman, Sandia Mountain foothills outside of Albuquerque in the early 70s

Martin Cox, Mother: Daphne (in the Bluebells), Itchen Valley, Hampshire, England

Susan Wyler, Mother: Nancy Jacqueline McMurphey Wyler on her 80th birthday, Los Angeles, CA

Janira Muñoz, Mother: Angels, My Parent’s Motorhome, Olot, in Catalonia (Spain)

Jackie Alpers, Mother: Lois, Columbus, OH

Brenda Burrell, Mother: Connie Coates, North-East of England, UK

Chuck Mintz, Mother: Ravelle Mintz, Palm Desert, CA

Monica Denevan, Mother: Patricia Allen, San Francisco, CA

Rachel Wolfe, Mother: Annette Wolfe, Oregon, IL

Andi Schreiber, Mother: Anita, Boca Raton, Florida

J. Wesley Brown, Mother: Lori Wesley, Grand Canyon, AZ

Patrick Collier, Mother: Mary Collier, Honolulu, HI

Susan Spiritus, In celebration of her Mother’s 100th birthday, Ida Miller and Susan Miller Spiritus around 1954 at Jones Beach, New York

Around 1917

Kate Pollard, Mother and sister: Donna and Casey Pollard, The Poconos, PA

Jane Paradise, Mother: Genevieve Lotko Paradise, New Britain, CT

Carol Dass, Mother: Mary, Beauty Shop, Columbia, Missouri

And one final salute, to my two wonderful children, Charlotte and Henry, for making me a mother, but also a better person, for enriching my life beyond anything that I could ever imagine, and for making me laugh and cry and know that life is more than me. Thank you.

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