The Beginning
Kent & Canterbury Hospital, Canterbury, June 2001
Every series has to start somewhere. This is where this one starts: the morning of 30th June 2001, a few hours after Rafferty — our first son — was born in the early hours at Kent & Canterbury Hospital. Vanessa and I both worked at this hospital, which gave the whole occasion a slightly surreal quality, as if the building itself was in on the secret. By late morning, mother and baby were doing well, and we were getting ready to take Raff home for the first time.
He is less than twelve hours old in this photograph. Tucked into his car seat, wrapped in a blanket, entirely unimpressed by the momentousness of the occasion, and fast asleep. Above him, tied to the handle of the car seat, a "Baby Boy!" balloon floats against the bright light of the ward windows — announcing him to the world with rather more fanfare than he himself was able to manage at the time.
I took this on an Olympus Mju 2 — a film compact — almost certainly loaded with Kodak Gold 200. The negative was scanned and converted to black and white some years later, by which point digital darkroom tools had caught up with what I wanted to do with it. The grain and the high-key light turned out to suit the image rather well.
Olympus Mju 2, Kodak Gold 200, Lightroom, Photoshop, Silver Efex Pro 2
