Anne Geddes Baby Pictures

The Evening News

The Evening News (New Glasgow), October 23, 1999, Final Edition, p.C8

TORONTO (CP) -- Everybody knows babies are delightful bundles of joy. But Anne Geddes has carved a niche in the world of baby photography by placing the wee ones in flower pots, dressing them up as cabbages, watermelons and butterflies and making them look OH-so-cute. Her cherubic babies stare out from displays of greeting cards and calendars in 56 countries around the world. The little darlings are so irresistible that there are more than 1.5 million copies of her first book, Down in the Garden, in print.

In short, Geddes isn't at a loss to explain why photographs of babies have turned her, since 1992, into a worldwide publishing phenomenon. They represent absolute potential," Geddes, 43, said during a recent North American tour. 'Nobody's told them that they're not smart, nobody's told them that they're not beautiful, nobody's told them they can't do anything. They're just pure potential."

About one-third of the images are the garden motif but others show naked newborns, sleeping in a variety of settings and being cradled by grown-ups. The message of "Until Now", even more so than "Down in the Garden", is love and care for babies," says Geddes. More simplicity, more emotional, particularly with the black and whites. I've always liked black and white photography."

Geddes started doing portrait photography when she was 25 and living in Hong Kong, where her husband Kel managed a TV station. "I thought when I was doing portraiture, that in order to stay sane, in a way, I'd do my own work one day a week," she says. "So I started with cabbage kids and things like that, and it sort went on from there." It took 26 or 27 cabbages to build the wire cabbage baskets for one shot of twin boys wearing cabbage leaf caps, she says.

Geddes has a full time props person and other assistants. Parents are all-too-willing to serve up their offspring as models.

She finds it easiest to work with babies who are just a few weeks old, rather than, say, a two-year-old with a mind of his own. "Generally with newborns they'll sleep the first few weeks of life," she notes. "If they're not feeding they're sleeping. So that's the best time to get them."

She travels to the United States once a year to photograph African-American babies because there are so few black people living in New Zealand. "We shot in Los Angeles last Easter, a year ago, and I went on a local television station to advertise. . .and we had 2,600 phone calls," she said. "I found it very stressful because I didn't want to disappoint anybody... so we ended up having to do auditions for three days. And 600 people turned up with their babies."

She's grateful to those who "share" their babies. "Most people in their daily lives don't come in contact with newborn babies and it's only when you have a baby in your family that you get to see them," she notes. It's raw material, isn't it? So just so precious. People invariably have this warm, lovely reaction to the images."