Photographer Jenny Lewis launches One Day Young project

Images from Jenny Lewis’ One Day Young project. Photographs: Jenny Lewis

A Hackney photographer is turning her lens from celebrities to the borough’s mothers.

Jenny Lewis, 39, of Queensbridge Road has shot portraits of the likes of comedian Tim Minchin, physicist Brian Cox and actress Keira Knightley but her latest project, One Day Young, sees her snapping mums and their babies within 24 hours of the birth and in their own homes.

Lewis, a mother of two, said: “I wanted to capture the first day of full-on miracle emotions.

“There is a crazy chemical high when you walk in the room, the mothers are like they are on opium they are so open and blown away by the experience.”

All of the subjects involved are total strangers to Lewis. They were found by leafleting in chip shops, cafes and parks.

“Motherhood really brings people together, it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got, or what your job is, you’ve just done this amazing thing so everyone feels joyous and proud,” Lewis said.Lewis wants this project to portray a positive and calm image of childbirth.

She said:  “The only thing people have seen on birth is sensationalised TV like One Born Every Minute which is full of a lot of pain, a lot of drama.

“But every home which I’ve gone to there is just utter calm, there isn’t this kind of highly dramatised madness and chaos.”

Rather than exhibiting the project in a gallery, Lewis’ wants to showcase the pictures in a public space in Hackney.

She said: “Ideally I’d have it down the corridor in the maternity ward so that for the nine months that you are going in for blood tests and scans, you’ve got a corridor of positive faces.”

Lewis is seeking more subjects and is inviting any mothers-to-be to email jenny@jennylewis.net with their addresses and due dates.