We’ve all seen those newborn photo shoots before. You know, the ones in which a tiny naked infant is smiling inside a flowerpot or sleeping serenely on a furry white rug. But in Edward Mapplethorpe’s latest photography book, One: Sons & Daughters, which features 60 black-and-white portraits of 1-year-old babies, you won’t encounter any of those clichéd conceits or grins. “I just think there’s something more interesting in a portrait of somebody when they’re not smiling,” Mapplethorpe told Vogue.com recently by phone. “I’m not really looking for that. I never did when I photographed adults, either.”
For the last 20 years, Mapplethorpe has been shooting these “little people,” as he likes to call them, trying to capture their budding personalities at a pivotal stage in their development. One of the book’s subjects has a tear streaming down her face; another is eyeing the camera with suspicious eyes, or crossing his arms, signaling he’s about to throw a fit. And despite Mapplethorpe’s insistence to the contrary, there are more than a few pictures of smiling toddlers in there, too.
It may seem odd to pair the Mapplethorpe name—Edward worked in the studio of his late brother, Robert, in the ’80s—with a photography book about children, but Mapplethorpe admits he fell into this project by accident. “I didn’t have any real interest in photographing children or babies,” he said from his studio in New York. “At the time I found it could possibly be lucrative and support the other work that I was doing. But after several years, it became something that I really enjoyed and one of the most rewarding aspects of my career.”
We asked the photographer about the project, his tiny subjects, and what he thinks his brother might have thought of his new book.
How did this project first get started?
When I first started exhibiting in 1990, my gallery and dealer was James Danziger, located in the Lower East Side. I had photographed children previous to that exhibition, and he always thought that I had a good eye for it and a talent with children. He connected me with an auction and suggested I commission a photo of a 1-year-old, and that’s sort of how that happened.
Why do you think you manage to capture something in these photos that no one else can?
I think it’s the fact that I don’t look at them as babies. I looked at these pictures and thought, These are people, people with characters and personalities. That’s what fascinated me about them; they transcended the baby photographs that one is commonly familiar with. There are many studios that are experts at taking photographs of babies, and they’re very good at it. I commend them for that. I had no interest in that.
Why aren’t there any names in the captions, only birthdates?
I always asked parents for [the children’s] birth information because I knew I just wanted to title them by the day they were born. You know, some of them are the children of names you might recognize and some are not. I didn’t want that to be an element of the book. It’s not about that. It’s about these little people. Once you know that so-and-so is this person’s child, it changes your perspective. It taints it somehow.
I like that you included the exact time of their birth, too.
It’s their little moment! Down to the second!
Your photos are different because they don’t always show a smiling baby.
I let the parents know that I don’t have any magical powers. I think that’s what I also appreciate of the pictures: They’re not cute. I’m not looking to do that cutesy picture. If the child has tears in their eyes, if there’s a frown or worry, let me capture that, because that’s who they are. We are all different, we are all human beings. We all have good days, we all have bad ones.
I saw Patti Smith wrote a poem at the beginning of the book. How did the poem come about?
This book has been an idea for many, many years, but it just got put on the side burner. I lost interest in pursuing it for some time. Way back, Patti Smith said that it would be a great book, and said, “If you ever would want me to write anything, I would be happy and more than willing.” I asked her if she would be willing to write a poem, and she said she loved that idea. When she later gave me the poem, she said she struggled with it. “You know, nothing was really coming to mind.” And then she said she thought of me and my wife, and looked at Harrison [my son], and that it all sort of formulated from that moment on. It brought tears to my eyes.
It seems so unexpected for a Mapplethorpe to be doing a photography book on babies.
My career has taken on a whole different life than my brother’s. I worked with Robert very closely for many years. I’ve always continued to do my work. I think Robert’s legacy is an amazing thing. It has opened many doors, but it’s also made my career a bit more challenging than the next guy. I do a lot of work other than these children. This is just one aspect of what I do.
With [the documentary on Robert Mapplethorpe] being out, I think the Mapplethorpe name being attached to 1-year-old children—to innocence, to promise, to the future, to something very positive—I think it’s a good time for this book to come out. And I think it complements Robert’s legacy, in an odd way, perhaps. Robert had photographed children from time to time, and I know it from working with him that he found it to be one of the most difficult things to do. And it is. It’s very challenging.
What do you think he would have said about One?
I would only hope that he would be very proud of me and very supportive of it, perhaps envious. I don’t know. That’s a good question. I wish I could just immediately say, “Oh, he would love it, and he would be so proud, and he would be telling everybody to buy the book.” But Robert was a difficult person. So I don’t know. It’s 27 years after he’s been gone. I like to think that he would be very proud of it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.