Anne Geddes made a fortune from ‘perfect baby' snaps. Has she met her match in my toddler?
My baby photography dreams faltered the moment my one-year-old started frantically shredding the flowers I had arranged around him in a semi-circle, and then stuffing some of the larger petals into his mouth.
'Are you sure they're not poisonous?' asked the photographer – a professional from The Telegraph who had come to my house to document my attempts to get a portrait shot of my child – somewhat warily as the baby and I then embarked on a tussle about whether he could gnaw a stem to soothe his teething gums.
It all began with Anne Geddes – not only her renowned images of round-faced babies emerging from geranium pots or resting on rose petals, but also with the recent launch of her online photography course. For a modest £75, the course promises to guide parents in recreating their own flowerpot moments at home.
Geddes, 68, built an empire of cuteness in the 1990s, when she released her first coffee-table book, Down in the Garden, which was filled with photos of babies looking squeezably sweet, dressed as sunflowers and peas in pods, peering out of watering cans with daffodils on their heads or sleeping gently on a toadstool in a pair of butterfly wings. There are twins dressed as cabbages, babies dozing on pumpkins and tiny grinning bumblebees. It was a whole new feel-good type of photography that a pre-iPhone world fell for hard: Oprah Winfrey had Geddes on her show, Geddes's calendars and books sold millions of copies and her images were even parodied on television shows such as Friends and The Office.
Women of my generation grew up with Anne Geddes babies – so when I heard about the course, I couldn't resist the temptation to get some adorable pictures of my own.
Geddes's online course opens with the advice to pick your child's happiest hours for the photo shoot. Keen to keep him at the childminder until 4pm so I could get some other work done, I persuaded myself that I could definitely still make him look angelic at his most devilish time. This was a mistake.
'Bob,' he screeched, red-faced, as I carried him into the sitting room – meaning Bob Marley, the only musician he will listen to, who he now demands we play at 5.45am, to the detriment of our family's mental health. Like assistants on a shoot with a particularly demanding celebrity, the photographer and I scrambled to find Three Little Birds on Spotify – while agreeing that even the most terrifying divas don't usually kick their legs in rage when they learn they can't throw the speaker behind the sofa.
With reggae blaring, we attempted to position him in the (empty) fireplace alongside some of his more photogenic toys
This is another tip from Geddes, who steers parents clear of anything too fussy – flowerpots, for example, are too complicated for amateurs. I breathe a sigh of relief, having already envisioned clumps of soil being scattered across the room.
'Mostly, I encourage people to do lovely, simple things,' she says in her course. 'One of the babies I photographed recently was playing with a 75-year-old teddy bear that had belonged to a late grandmother. But if you love gardening or if you have a particular piece of jewellery, then try that. Remember, you want images that will stand the test of time; you're aiming for a beautiful picture celebrating the fact your baby is in the world, that you can look at in 20 or 30 years with joy.'
I absolutely refuse to let this agent of destruction near any of my jewellery, and our bare London patio in early March is not exactly tempting – hence the fireplace, his toys and a couple of despondent-looking flowers. 'Keep the background simple so it's all about the cute little baby,' says Geddes.
As his mother, I'm fully aware that this is the most beautiful child to have ever lived – so looking adorable is not the issue. The challenge lies in getting a 14-month-old who has just learnt to walk to stay still for more than five seconds. The online course, which focuses on younger babies than my own, doesn't quite address this dilemma. It becomes clear rather quickly that I can't artfully arrange any of the tiny silk butterflies Geddes suggested I buy, or set up any lighting, because I'm too busy using both hands to keep him in place.
I video-call Geddes in her studio in New York, where she lives, and she immediately commiserates with me. 'Oh, that's a difficult age,' she says, already soothing me with her warm Australian accent. 'The absolute sweet spot is six months. They're just sitting and they're really happy about being upright after only lying on their backs, but they're not crawling and they love colours, so when you talk to them, you have their attention.'
Seeing me start to lose heart, she adds, 'But I know from more than 10,000 hours of photographing babies that I can get a result out of any age. But it does get more challenging.'
As for outfits, she advises against the sort of daisy-face crowns and bumblebee suits that made her famous. 'Keep the clothing really simple – he's got a beautiful little body, so put him in trousers with no top or something light, so the focus is on him, and if he doesn't want to wear matching socks, that's fine. Let him be him. When you look back at the pictures, you want to remember his personality, not the outfit you bought. I always say, 'Don't make it perfect, make it full of character.''
That, we can manage. Dressed in cream leggings and a matching top from La Coqueta (which, regrettably, I tossed in the tumble dryer and now fits just a little too snugly), he does stay still for a moment – but only because I'm dancing around like a performing seal, trying to entertain him. There's a reason Patrick Demarchelier and Mario Testino don't resort to oink-oink piggy noises while jumping up and down during a shoot – and that's because it's incredibly difficult to do so and keep your lens steady.
Geddes agrees on this count, too. She remains in high demand – on the afternoon I speak to her, she's just returned from Dubai, where she photographed a billionaire's baby on a bed of hydrangeas. At one point during our conversation, she mentions how well-behaved the Prince of Morocco was during their shoot.
What Geddes has that I don't, of course, is a team of assistants – one of whom's sole responsibility is to keep an eye on the baby to ensure their safety – who can take over the oink-oink duties. She also has a few extra models at her disposal when shooting babywear for brands such as Loewe and Dior. 'Recently, we were photographing them on a beautiful water lily,' she says, 'we had four or five babies and one was called Lily, so she would have been perfect – but she absolutely refused to go anywhere near it. It was a flat-out no way, 'What the hell is that?' moment, so we gave up.'
Mostly, though, the babies love the spotlight. 'You'd be surprised by how few meltdowns we have in the studio. Parents are often relieved by how easy it was – I find with babies, if you treat them in the right way, keep it calm, don't crowd them and just let them be, then it almost always works out.'
Following her advice, I decided to take my baby to the bathroom towards the end of the shoot, as he loves water. I was hopeful that – after removing the toothbrushes, face creams, rolls of dental floss and hairbrushes from his ever-grasping hands – I could capture him looking sweet in the sink.
The result wasn't exactly a roaring success, mostly because his desperation to smash his fists against the mirror made me slightly anxious he would break it.
I put him down and as the photographer and I wondered what to try next, we realised that – finally – he was utterly absorbed, with a huge smile on his face. While we had been talking, he had toddled over to the loo and, with excitement and trepidation, had lifted the lid. Gurgling with joy, he stared at the water below.
Instead of rose petals, hydrangeas and family teddy bears, what my child really wanted to interact with was a loo seat – and so I opened my camera to capture the perfect moment we had all been waiting for.
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