The Maternity Clinic Toddler T-Shirt

During the Soviet Era, traditionally, women were admitted, alone, to the maternity clinic for their labor, delivery and postpartum care: family members were not admitted into the building and women were hospitalized for 7 to 10 days. Neither husbands, nor family members were not able to visit, or even ask how the mother and child were. The Doctors were too busy and the nurses knew nothing. Subsequently, women labored alone.

Little attention was paid to privacy or dignity, partly because this was not deemed a priority. The women were placed in a labor ward, with anywhere from two, to as many as twenty other women.

Routine monitoring was often undertaken on a centrally positioned examination table where she would be examined in full view of the others in the room. Privacy was not a consideration, there were no room dividers or curtains.

Mothers did not usually hold or even touch their babies, let alone breastfeed them, until several hours, or even d...

I have had a camera in my hand ever since I can remember, at first, trying to capture the moment with simple snapshots. Gradually those snapshots started becoming more sophisticated and my work was no longer a picture a person, or group in front of a giant building where you had to look closely to identify the people in the picture. As time passed, my love grew stronger. I wanted to create, as opposed to just taking a picture. However, the response from family and friends was, Why would you take a picture of that. Although I did not realize it at the time, I guess I was on the right track. The less they understood, the more I liked what I did and subsequently became bored traveling with others and preferring to travel and go out...