How art I created from photos has been viewed around the world

I came home today to a package and thought "What have I ordered now?" - as you do. I didn't remember ordering any photos?

The utter shock, to find this book, in which some of my images and quotes have been featured was so unexpected, it temporarily took my breath away.

About 6 months ago, I was contacted by a lady I didn't know from Canada, who had seen one of the images I had posted online for what would have been my son's 3rd birthday. Isn't the modern world incredible, how you can reach and touch people you have never met through social media. She explained how she was writing a book about bereavement and memory through photography and would love to be able to demonstrate contemporary approaches to the production of joint portraits that include absent loved ones.

brothers holding the shadow hand of their brother who died

Of course I agreed for her to use my photos. I had created these images for myself - the only way I could ever get a glimpse of my three boys together - but to think they may impact on the way others see, feel, and understand parental bereavement has become an underlying current in much of my work over the last few years.

Boys in a field holding a jar of glowing butterflies

I skim read a few pages of the book, and must say, it is written incredibly well, so eloquent, and Felicity (the author) while she has not experienced child loss herself, has captured what it is like to be a bereaved parent perfectly. The loss of not just what was, but what could have (should have) been. The isolation, in a society where people are afraid of talking about death, and so would rather avoid the subject, and people, completely.

The most startling thing for me though, was to see how she had tracked bereavement photography through history, and how what I had done, was nothing new. I was aware of the Victorian's photographing the dead sitting in chairs, and cots in the case of babies, but not the techniques in which an image of a loved one was combined with a newer image of a relative, almost like a faded imprint, or featured shadow.

Apart from seeing our son Phoenix's name in this book - which really touched my heart - it was incredible to see my images in a book containing historic photographs from the last few centuries, and realising that in the future, this book will become a permanent legacy that people may look back on, and there are my boys, all three of them, not lost online in the never never, but prited for posterity.

My greatest pleasure comes from being able to give the gift of bespoke storytelling images to other families, both documenting their living children, and when asked, giving a nod to their missing child either in the form of a shadow, or something that symbolically represents their loved one.

Family walking in a park in Ware with their Rainbow daughter and a shadow of the son who died

This book shines a light on how semi-private social media groups enable the bereaved parents of today to navigate their grief in the modern world. The author explores how creative, and sometimes contested, incorporations of photography within these online spaces demonstrate a revival and renegotiation of historic practices. By shining a light on recurrent tendencies and their evolution within new media this book offers an opportunity to observe the complex relationships grief can prompt some individuals to form with the portraits of absent loved ones.

Parental Grief and Photographic Remembrance is available to purchase on Amazon and directly from Emerald Publishing. You can even easily recommend it to your local or school library using this request form.

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12 Day Christmas Giveaway - Day 4

by Joanne Lewis • 4 December 2020

A picture of Santa and me...

12 Day Christmas Giveaway - Day 3

by Joanne Lewis • 3 December 2020

... Buy one, Get one Free*

12 Day Christmas Giveaway - Day 2

by Joanne Lewis • 2 December 2020

... a second print using the same photo for free*

12 Day Christmas Giveaway - Day 1

by Joanne Lewis • 1 December 2020

... a mounted print of a photo she's created for me*

Unbelievable Photography deals Black Friday 2020

by Joanne Lewis • 26 November 2020

I couldn't let Black Friday 2020 go by without some amazing deals for my wonderful and valued customers... I've missed you all so much this year, but have loved the few shoots I was able to squeeze in between lockdowns and Home Education. With all the optimism I can muster for next year (I am naturally a pretty positive person) I am offering some spectacular deals on vouchers for my Hertford Studio and outdoor or on-location sessions next year (packages may be given as gifts, but please confirm preferred locations around Hertfordshire and some parts of London, Cambridgeshire and Essex with me before booking).