The Hardest Hue To Hold tells the stories of mothers unable to hold their children in the hour after birth, commonly known as the Golden Hour.

The Golden Hour in neonatology was adopted from adult trauma management, where the first 60 minutes after an injury are seen as the most critical in determining a person’s outcome. Reframed as the crowning finale of a ‘good’ birth, this specific window of time is considered foundational in Western birth narratives as a near-mythic moment of closeness where crucial bonding begins. The benefits of the Golden Hour are extensive and well-documented. Most notably, when a mother and baby experience uninterrupted skin-to-skin, the rates of postpartum depression decrease and a newborn’s long-term health outcomes improve. But what happens when the Golden Hour is missed? Families affected by traumatic birth are often left without a place to share their experiences. The common advice is to ‘go home and enjoy your baby,’ without acknowledgement that something seminal has been lost.

In 2022, my daughter was born with extreme blood loss. She was taken to the NICU, and I spent hours alone, unsure if she was alive. The trauma of her birth and our separation left an indelible mark and became the catalyst for this work. The series was photographed in homes across Nova Scotia between 2023 and 2026. As the work unfolds, intimate portraiture and allegorical still-life are woven together with alternating moments of presence, rupture, and reflection. With skin-to-skin imagery playing a central role, the photographs turn toward life back home, exploring the dissonance between profound gratitude and intangible grief. The series title is drawn from Robert Frost’s poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, whose meditation on impermanence quietly informs the rhythm of the work. 

The Hardest Hue to Hold offers a rare and intimate exploration of birth trauma, bringing together profoundly underrepresented narratives of birth. The work bears witness to maternal resilience and to the ways birth stories can transform identity. It asks what it means to begin a relationship shaped by absence.

The complete series will be available to view in 2026.