How to Take a Baby Picture like a 19th-Century Photographer
“Hidden mother” portraits reveal the challenges of keeping infants still for the camera
Portrait of a Seated Woman and Baby, about 1851, American. Daguerreotype, 2 5/8 × 2 1/8 in. Getty Museum. 84.XT.1574.36
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It’s hard to keep a baby still for an iPhone photo, but early photography came with its own challenges.
In the 1860s, it took up to 30 seconds to expose a photograph. If the baby moved, the photo came out blurry.
To take a picture of a baby, photographers often enlisted the child’s mother or caregiver to keep them still. In an effort to foreground the baby, they developed elaborate ways of disguising the adult in the picture. This type of portrait later became known as the “hidden mother.”
Sometimes you can see someone crouching behind the child, holding them in place. Photographers even used blankets, sheets, and curtains to disguise the mother. In the portraits below, you can see these strategies at work. In one portrait, the baby is actually sitting on an adult’s lap, supported by their hand.
Unidentified baby wearing a long dressing gown, with unidentified figure behind holding up baby, 1865–1875, J.H. Grotecloss. Albumen silver print. Getty Museum, 84.XD.1157.1529
Baby in long gown, seated, 1860s, E.O. Cook. Albumen silver print. Getty Museum, 84.XD.1426.78
Photographers also used screens to hide parents and caregivers. Here, the baby is resting against a screen attached to a chair—a telltale sign that there’s someone else in the picture.
Portrait of a Seated Child with Hidden Mother, 1865–1870, American. Tintype, 3 1/2 × 2 3/8 in. Getty Museum, 84.XT.1395.68
Sometimes, all you can see of the mother is an arm, reaching into the frame to steady the child.
Double portrait of a baby, 1860, Jacob Byerly. Tintype, 3 3/8 × 5 1/16 in. Getty Museum, 84.XT.1395.28
Some photographers hid the mother afterward, literally scratching her out of the image.
Portrait of an Infant in White Bonnet and Dress with Hand of Parent Visible, about 1862–1867. Ambrotype, 3 3/4 × 2 3/4 in. Getty Museum, 2015.20.63
Others used elaborate motifs, like this leaf, to distract from the presence of the mother in the portrait.
Unidentified baby superimposed within a leaf, 1870–1875, L.K. Showman & Read. Albumen silver print. Getty Museum, 84.XD.1157.1827
But sometimes, none of these strategies worked!
Crying child, negative before 1872; print 1872, Oscar Gustave Rejlander. Heliotype, 1 7/8 × 1 5/8 in. Getty Museum, 84.XL.1214.3
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