Black and white newborns and mothers are featured in full color in Australian photographer Geddes's latest postpartum spectacular. It has been more than five years since Down in the Garden, Geddes's bestselling set of stylized babies-as-flowers. These 123 new color and b&w photographs offer a variety of mother-and-child poses and guises, many of which, through the ingenious use of body stockings and some careful camera work, simulate pregnancy: here are babies in fetal position on mother's stomach, held in place by flesh-like mesh; babies surrounded by strange, womb-simulating white fluff; babies projected into Mars-like pulsing red-yellow backdrops suggesting a living womb. The effect is unsettling, to say the least. There are also more conventional shots of newborns precariously balanced on women's backs or nestled at the breast, and simple, intense closeups of sleeping infants. Single words appear en face
to the full-page photos: "DELIGHTFUL," "MIRACULOUS," "DELICATE," "CHERISHED." What aren't they doing? Screaming, eating, moving or looking expectantly at the viewer and demanding something they cannot yet verbalize. These babies are like Geddes's other preferred subject, flowers: beautiful, silent, content. Yet fantasy and idealization are as much a part of life as gritty vérité: Geddes's books have sold 15 million copies in 50 countries. (Nov.)
