Up in the Air
When Julie Blackmon first moved her family back to her hometown of Springfield, Mo., 13 years ago, she decided her new living room needed a little something.
"I really just wanted to get some good black-and-white pictures of my kids that I could put on the wall," she recently told The Cut. "That was when the Pottery Barn look was in, so I was just trying to make my living room look cool, basically."
So the mom of three picked up a camera again for what seemed like the first time since college, she says, and started documenting. But what started as a one-weekend project soon spilled over into full-blown love affair with the camera—not to mention, a whole new career.
Gone Swimming
In this image, it looks as if an oil spill is threatening an otherwise fun swim day.
Blackmon's work, which has largely centered on kids and family life over the last 13 years, is now being shared in her new book, "Homegrown." And though her own kids are now grown (two are in their teens, one is twentysomething), she still continues to photograph her kids and those in the neighborhood, and says that "Homegrown" is largely inspired by the domestic scenes of the Dutch painter Jan Steen, as much as by her own chaotic ride through early parenthood.
Running Amock
"I feel like a big part of this work came out of the struggle of making sense of parenting today," says Blackmon. "It’s so radically different from how we grew up, where we kind of had our own world and our parents had another. That’s not the culture we’re in anymore—now you just structure every moment of your kids' day and have them in French."
Table Talk
This whole new world of helicopter parenting, she says, just isn't her style. In fact, much of what she tried to capture from behind the lens, as she stood back and let her kids be kids, was the idea that they should be free to discover who they are, without her hovering over.
Backyard Party
"I can’t do that [helicopter parenting]," she says. "It just doesn’t come naturally to me. I always felt like I’m this kind of spacey, disconnected mother—like some Woody Allen character. Like Diane Keaton—this well-meaning, sort of spacey, off-in-her-own-world woman—and trying to sort it all out, with kids and her own life. And the fact that your kids are the most important things in the world, but you have all these other things pulling at you—and then feeling like a failure and guilt and all of that. And, being from Springfield, Missouri, there are still a lot of traditional values. Like, I’ve been traveling almost all of September, and you still get these weird questions, like, 'How does your husband feel about that?' And other things that a man would never get asked."
Family Ties
While Blackmon says most of her photography is inspired by her own life experiences, the artistry behind her photos goes far beyond simply setting up a camera and seeing what happens.
"I don’t think there’s an artist out there, whether they’re a novelist or poet or Wes Anderson or Tim Burton or whatever, whose work isn’t autobiographical," she says. "I think we like to pin that on women, like, O_h, because you’re a mother and you’re shooting kids, that must be all you know_, rather than like, Oh, you’re an artist and you see a story here."
Room With a View
Many of Blackmon's photos can be charming and lighthearted.
Living Room Chaos
Other photos explore the dark, such as this somewhat eerie photo titled "Sharpie," which captures the destruction a toddler can cause with just a black marker and a few moments alone.
Trick or Treat
And this chaotic scene, which features the real horror of Halloween night: trying to get all the kids ready and out the door on time so they can go beg for candy.
Kids Gone Wild
Above all, though, Blackmon is sure to add a dose of levity to all of her photos.
"It’s what drives the work," she says of the humor in her pictures. "It’s way too hard to do some serious—you know, I love Vermeer, but to do some serious woman reading a letter at a window or something … I just wouldn’t have any fun with that, unless I threw in some little horrible detail in the background. That’s always what I’m aiming for—but not in a simple way. It’s a funny way that makes you recognize something that you’re kind of creeped out or you’re kind of charmed by—and all these things come together to make you laugh. At least, those are the things that make me laugh."
(Us too, Julie.)
