How it started...

I made a slideshow for the workshop, you can see it at the bottom…

When the pandemic hit I had nearly 50 students and was in the middle of teaching two workshops. It was amazing to have so many people to meet with from all over the world, it really brought the community and pandemic into perspective fast. By May I was exhausted and needed something for myself.

Whenever I need a break I look for a workshop. I find online workshops to be invigorating and sometimes I even take workshops on topics I already know, but want the benefit of another person’s experience with it to add a layer of knowledge.

The summer of 2020 my friend Linda was teaching a workshop. It provided the perfect opportunity to carve out some space for myself and be guided by someone else. It also helped that she’s my friend from Oslo, and being desperately homesick I’d get to speak my language too.

I knew I wasn’t going to make new work, I was too deflated, so I brought along my bounty of anonymous kids photographs I’d been making since my kids were born. I wanted her perspective. Would she think a first-person narrative about motherhood through anonymous kid photographs had a place in the documentary world?

The short answer was yes. And together we worked on an edit and sequence through the summer.

Then she said: “Kristine, you have to make a book.”

That was the beginning, and now, two years later, the book is designed and soon I will launch it.

To see what the project looked like in the early days check out the slideshow I made for Linda’s workshop below.

And if you have a chance to work with Linda, keep an eye out for anything she’s teaching. She’s one of my favourite teachers and photographers.

https://www.lindabournane.com