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Friday, October 12, 2012

Visual Art Photos of Sleeping Couples Before the Birth of Their Child

Posted by Jen Graves on Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 9:34 AM

intimate-photos-of-sleeping-couples-awaiting-the-birth-of-their-child.jpeg

Courtesy the artist

It's been a week since I first saw Alison Zavos's post at Feature Shoot about Russian photographer Jana Romanova's series of 40 sleeping couples, shot in the early morning, corresponding in number with 40 weeks of pregnancy. I haven't been able to get these compositionally and psychologically fraught scenes out of my mind, so I wanted to share them with you.

And how did Romanova actually shoot these? I emailed her to ask. She wrote back,

In most of times I stayed with people at night and photographed them early in the morning, around 6 am, there was a home ladder that I slowly climbed with my camera on the tripod. I used the 10 seconds delayed shutter and just hold it in my hands. This is a long process, where I
take only few images (around 10, maybe) in 1 hour, trying not to make noise.

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Comments (20) RSS

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Pregnancy shots are nasty.

Posted by suddenlyorcas on October 12, 2012 at 9:41 AM

These are such amazing pictures, Jen! Thank you for sharing.

Posted by More, I Say! on October 12, 2012 at 9:46 AM

I like it!

Posted by Jenerate

on October 12, 2012 at 9:49 AM

Wow, so beautiful. Makes me sad and happy at the same time. Maybe, partly because I can't have a baby.

Posted by ArtBasketSara on October 12, 2012 at 9:56 AM

Really interesting as well. The more I look through them, the more fascinated (repulsed/compelled) to see people when they're sleeping. Amazing snapshots.

Posted by ArtBasketSara on October 12, 2012 at 9:59 AM

Those photos really show the mammal in us - easy to imagine them looking just the same in sleep, curled up on the floor of a cave 10,000 years ago.

Posted by Jude Fawley on October 12, 2012 at 10:05 AM

They are very affecting. Usually photos of couples in bed are either in porn or in department-store linen advertisements, rarely of ordinary people in everyday tangles.

They feel kind of National-Geographic-y, especially with the typical Russian, shall we say, exuberance of colors and patterns; also with the subtle evidence that many Russians still live in quite cramped apartments, often shared with other family members (and just as in the U.S., the gap between rich and poor is widening rapidly).

The hovering-angel point of view makes us explicitly voyeurs and yet at the same time renders us invisible and removes our guilt at watching.

Thank you, Jen.

Posted by rob!

on October 12, 2012 at 10:12 AM

what #1 said

Posted by Doot on October 12, 2012 at 10:22 AM

@1

Agreed! EW! Fucking, EWW!

Posted by Confluence on October 12, 2012 at 10:28 AM

Hmm. I never took @1 for a puritan, but that reaction shows how deeply our society holds on to that shit.

Nice pictures, thanks for sharing.

Posted by Matt from Denver on October 12, 2012 at 10:32 AM

@1,9: Grow up.

Posted by Dr_Awesome on October 12, 2012 at 10:34 AM

Gee, why the outrage? It's not like the couple's fucking the cat or something.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on October 12, 2012 at 10:36 AM

Rad cat.

Posted by DOUG.

on October 12, 2012 at 10:36 AM

That's a cool project.

Posted by sall on October 12, 2012 at 10:53 AM

@1, 8, 9:

You know, your mom looked like that once upon a time.

Posted by MLM on October 12, 2012 at 10:55 AM

Loved them

Posted by internet_jen on October 12, 2012 at 11:36 AM

@1,8,9- You all are complete jackasses.

How do people sleep with an arm under their partner? I can't deal with the dead arm in the morning.

Posted by dwightmoodyforgetsthings

on October 12, 2012 at 12:51 PM

@17 I can't deal with that lumpy-arm-under-my-neck and the roll-face-first-into-my-partner's-armpit stuff. I don't know how anyone does that, but I do believe that humans were poorly designed for tandem sleeping.

Posted by More, I Say! on October 12, 2012 at 2:09 PM

Call me when we've elevated "birth" business into the arms of scientists and city planners.

Christ! it's the 21st century and it's still about blood, muck, chance and (mostly) hurt feelings?

Posted by Doot on October 12, 2012 at 4:09 PM