Trying to conceive: a photographic journey – in pictures

Melanie Stidolph realised her attempts to become pregnant mirrored the way she was taking pictures – which included inviting birds to trigger the shutter

Main image: ‘The images evoke the spectre of repetition and failure’ … Repetition: London, home, 2012 Photograph: Melanie Stidolph

  • Timing: Essex, stepfather Doug’s house, 2011

    Melanie Stidolph says: ‘The photographs in this book were made over the five years I was unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant. Part of my art practice, but also subconsciously, a way of coping.’ Stidolph’s work will be showing as part of the group exhibition, We Are Floating In Space, at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, from 11 February until 3 June. Also showing at the RWA Open Photo exhibition from 28 January until 1 May. You can buy the book Endless Reproduction here
    ‘Twenty-two years after having children became a focused ambition. I spent years in the mind of my imagined near future – willing an increasingly distant life closer to me, whilst trying to hold myself in the present.The photographs in this book were made over the five years Iwas unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant. Part of my art practice, but also subconsciously, a way of coping.

  • Nature: Wales, friend’s house, 2011

    ‘I made hundreds of photographs over this time, setting up scenarios that invited other subjects to trigger the shutter – birds, apples, balls, my dog and finally, the lights and sounds of the darkroom. Here a TriggerSmart fires the camera shutter when something breaks the infra-red beam. I set up the beam, link the boxes to the camera and place seed on the perch. Birds land, they break the beam and photograph the inside of the room. I’m in there, with my camera, and photograph them as they unknowingly photograph me’
    Nature: Wales, friends house, 2011‘I made hundreds of photographs over this time, setting up scenarios that invited other subjects to trigger the shutter – birds, apples, balls, my dog and finally, the lights and sounds of the darkroom. Here a Trigger Smart fires the camera shutter when something breaks the infra-red beam. I set up the infra-red beam, link the boxes to the camera and place seed on the perch. Birds land, they break the beam and photograph the inside of the room. I’m in there, with my camera, and photograph them as they unknowingly photograph me’

  • Repetition: London, home, 2012

    ‘Two years ago, when I looked at all the images together, I saw how they unconsciously mirrored the stages of trying to conceive; beginning with relying on nature, then living by a 28-day calendar, being assisted by drugs and monitoring and then increasingly random trying before eventual defeat’
    Timing: Essex, Step fathers Doug’s house 2011Two years ago, when I looked at all the images together, I saw how they unconsciously mirrored the stages of trying to conceive; beginning with relying on nature, then living by a 28 day calendar, being assisted by drugs and monitoring and then increasingly random trying before eventual defeat.

  • Mine and S’s flat together for 15 years

    ‘The images without me are better – I look tired and fragile. The idea that people have been in the bed is better than how the reality looks in a photograph’
    Repetition: London, home, mine and S’s flat together for 15 years 2012The images without me are better, I look tired and fragile. The idea that people have been in the bed is better than how the reality looks in a photograph.In these images I was making, in homes, in the kitchen, in living rooms and bedrooms, I eventually saw something that made sense: the shadow.

  • ‘In these images I was making, in homes, in the kitchen, in living rooms and bedrooms, I eventually saw something that made sense: the shadow’
    In these images I was making, in homes, in the kitchen, in living rooms and bedrooms, I eventually saw something that made sense: the shadow.

  • ‘Endless Reproduction merges my story of trying to conceive with the mechanical processes of photography, evoking the spectre of repetition and failure in both’
    Endless Reproduction merges my story of trying to conceive with the mechanical processes of photography, evoking the spectre of repetition and failure in both.

  • ‘In my diary I’m noting days, counting them off, looking for signs of ovulation, thinking about taking my temperature, trying not to drink alcohol, but still going to private views. I talk to those who have tried, or are thinking of trying. I cry a lot when I’m awake in the middle of the night, or alone in the flat and punctured by the desire for children’
    In my diary I’m noting days, counting them off, looking for signs of ovulation, thinking about taking my temperature, trying not to drink alcohol, but still going to private views. I talk to those who have tried, or are thinking of trying. I cry a lot when I’m awake in the middle of the night, or alone in the flat and punctured by the desire for children.

  • ‘The places I’m taking photographs in have changed and the significance of this escaped me. Again, and again, balls are thrown and dropped, the press of the shutter is relinquished to accident and automation. I’m looking for something, something that connects with this desperate feeling inside’
    The places I’m taking photographs in have changed and the significance of this escaped me.Again, and again, balls are thrown and dropped, the press of the shutter is relinquished to accident and automation with the Trigger Smart kit.I’m looking for something, something that connects with this desperate feeling inside.

  • ‘Optimism in nature gives way to random attempts fuelled by hope and grief. And you feel in the dark, separate, away from the world. My experience is that the grief is always with you, like a shadow of something that was never there falling across your page’
    Optimism in nature gives way to random attempts fueled by hope and grief. And you feel in the dark, separate, away from the world. My experience is that the grief is always with you, like a shadow of something that was never there falling across your page.

  • Intervention: London, my studio, 2012–14

    ‘I spend a lot of time here now, into the evening. Here is normally where I process, not where I make. I’m setting up scenes: throwing chairs, lumps of Blu-Tack as practice for eggs, and doing the almost exact same thing again, and again. The eggs seem so obvious to include and are messy in their landing, but the fragility of them caught mid-air gives the photographs the feel of a strange kind of magician’s act. They appear to be held by some invisible pull towards, not away from, my hand’
    Intervention: London, my studio, 2012–14‘I spend a lot of time here now, into the evening. Here is normally where I process, not where I make. I’m setting up scenes: throwing chairs, lumps of BLU-TACK as practice for eggs, and doing the almost exact same thing again, and again. The eggs seem so obvious to include and are messy in their landing, but the fragility of them caught mid-air gives the photographs the feel of a strange kind of magician’s act. They appear to be held by some invisible pull towards, not away from, my hand’

  • ‘I set TriggerSmart to fire the shutter when sound levels in the darkroom change, activated by the noise of the enlarger light coming on and off and the sound of the camera flash itself’
    I set Trigger Smart to fire the shutter when sound levels in the darkroom change, activated by the noise of the enlarger light coming on and off and the sound of the camera flash itself.

  • Random: Arts University Bournemouth studio, 2015

    ‘I’m now a senior lecturer in photography. I hold workshops using the TriggerSmart kit, we throw fake flowers and fruit, and burst balloons. I don’t talk about trying to get pregnant and the attachment I have with the kit and its processes; here, it’s just a gadget with some props’
    Random: Arts University Bournemouth studio, 2015‘I’m now a Senior Lecturer in Photography. I hold workshops using the Trigger Smart kit, we throw fake flowers and fruit, and burst balloons. I don’t talk about trying to get pregnant and the attachment I have with the kit and its processes; here, it’s just a gadget with some props’
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