The Hardest Hue to Hold explores birth trauma, the absence of skin-to-skin connection and the impact of separation between mother and child during the first hour after birth.

Often described as the golden hour, this time is held as foundational within Western birth narratives, a near-mythic window of uninterrupted closeness through which crucial bonding begins. When this hour is disrupted, the absence is rarely discussed. The common advice is to ‘go home and enjoy your baby,’ without acknowledgement that something seminal has been lost.

Inspired by my own daughter’s birth, the series focuses on life at home and explores the experience of living with profound gratitude alongside intangible grief. As the series unfolds, intimate portraiture, unconventional gestures of touch and allegorical still-life photographs are interwoven with alternating moments of presence, rupture and reflection. The work bears witness to untold narratives of birth and questions what it means to begin a relationship shaped by absence.

Note: The title ‘The Hardest Hue to Hold’ is inspired by Robert Frost’s 1923 poem Nothing Gold Can Stay.