Old Habits, 2011 by Susan Copich
Some dark and provocative photos that explore the more desperate undercurrents of motherhood have been making the rounds on blogs and social media. Photographer and mother of two, Susan Copich, found herself facing middle age with a waning acting career and a home life set to auto pilot, according to Slate. She also, like so many mothers, realized that she was missing from all the family photos.
So Copich began staging domestic scenes, many of them including her two daughters, and casting her own despair as the star element. The result is a photo series titled “Domestic Bliss” that just finished showing at the Umbrella Arts Gallery in New York City. You can scroll through several of the pictures from the series in this .
I must say, I love them. There’s a bit of dark humour to some of the pictures while others I have to keep returning to look at because they make me feel uncomfortable. In nearly every shot, Copich stares out with perfectly dead eyes, in various stages of undress. She oozes desperation and ennui; sex and violence; drudgery and despair. And then there are her children in the background. I can’t get over just how evocative these images are.