Anne Geddes – “123 POTS”
When I was first invited to be a contributor to Shutterbug News, I thought what a great opportunity to reflect (in an on-going series) on how some of my more well-known images were created over the years. And after a 40-year (and onwards!) career, there are more than a few good stories to tell. So where to begin? The flowerpots were a pretty obvious choice, and so I begin with the story of how this image called “123 Pots” (I explain this title choice later) came to be. Stay with me – it’s a complicated tale of resilience under a not insignificant amount of pressure. I’m Australian, but for 18 years my family and I lived in Auckland, New Zealand, which is where I set up my very first studio, apart that is, from my tiny backyard garage setup in Melbourne, Australia before we moved ‘across the ditch’ as Australians and Kiwis describe moving back and forth between the 2 countries.
Every time I look at “123 Pots” (created in the early 1990’s) I wonder how I even thought I could pull something like this off. The organization behind the scenes was daunting to say the least. The whole shoot in fact had been scheduled to happen 6-months earlier, but circumstances dictated otherwise. I had calculated that ideally I would need 160 x 6 to 7-month-old babies in order to achieve great impact visually, and of course had to allow for the fact that perhaps up to 30 or 40 babies might not want to sit in the pots on the day. I’d researched many locations and finally settled on a large greenhouse at a local garden centre, which not only was perfect as a setting for the image but could also accommodate all the necessary facilities required for so many babies to be in attendance, all at the same time. An undertaking on that scale requires quite a lot of care and attention to detail as you could imagine.
There were rows of change tables with individual change mats for each baby, supplies of diapers had been donated by a local company, refreshments were on hand, bathroom facilities, parking, you name it. Everybody had a name tag, and model releases of course needed to be signed – it was a bit like a polling station on voting day! I’ve included some behind-the-scenes images, which I hope give you more of an impression of what it was really like on the day. My recollections are that it was all a blur!
To find 160 babies in exactly this age group (remember this was pre-internet, social media and smart phones) I needed outside help, and a local radio station volunteered to interview me and assist with announcements. In no time at all, our phone (remember when they were plugged into the wall) was ringing off the hook. The criteria for our tiny models included that they be confident sitters, but still unlikely to pull themselves up to a standing position, as I didn’t want them to stand up in the pots. Of course, on the day, lots of assistants were on hand in case of this eventuality and in fact a few babies were quickly plucked from the pots when this happened at the start of the shoot, hence the empty pots in the final image.
Eventually we had booked all the babies and were a few days away from the shoot when a measles epidemic struck in Auckland. It was winter, and 6–month-old babies are too young to be inoculated against measles, which occurs primarily in late winter and early spring. To have 160 children together at one time in a warm greenhouse just wasn’t an option. I immediately cancelled the entire shoot – a major feat in itself – as everybody who was booked needed to be informed that it was postponed. These days of course I could have just done a mass mail-out There were a lot of disappointed parents, as of course by the time the shoot could be rescheduled in the summer, their babies would be too old to be able to attend. When the time came, I faced the prospect of having to locate and re-book another 160 babies!
I almost didn’t reschedule the shoot at all, mainly through lack of intestinal fortitude. For the amount of planning and work we’d already done, I was starting to have serious doubts, not just whether the concept had merit, but simply whether it was achievable. But the thought of all those little round heads peering out of the flowerpots finally drove me to it, and it was definitely worthwhile in the end.
From the camera angle (a 4” x 5” Sinar) it appears as if the pots are all really close together, but in fact there was plenty of walking space between them, to allow easy access to each flowerpot in order to safely place the babies in and out. Each pot contained a little foam pillow for comfort. A parent stood by each pot with their baby, and watched while I quickly demonstrated the best way to place the baby in the pot, which was with their legs crossed as if they were already in a sitting position. All of the babies were then placed in the pots at precisely the same time, then the parents quickly and quietly walked away to one side. I specifically asked parents to not try to attract the attention of their baby once they were inside the pot, as I ultimately wanted the babies to be looking toward the camera, or at least in that general direction! It’s always good to have a basic plan right?
I had 2 cameras operating simultaneously, and knew that I would have to shoot quickly, as I’d only get one chance to achieve the image. So, as you can imagine, I was a little anxious at the time. I actually thought of the fantastic desert scene in the movie “Lawrence of Arabia” (directed by David Lean) and wondered if he would have liked to have changed places with me in terms of crowd control … certainly at the time I wouldn’t have minded swapping!
You can see that some of the babies are looking to the left of the image, which is where the parents were standing. To the right on the opposite side, one of my assistants was waving an enormous bunch of balloons to try and distract everybody, not necessarily with much success! Of course, once one baby started to cry, a few others joined in. The babies were probably in the flowerpots for about 2 minutes at most. The general consensus was that we could count 123 babies in the final image, and that name kind of stuck. I admit though, that it was a while before I could look at this image without having flashbacks to the sheer amount of effort it took to achieve!
When I first scouted the plant nursery to check if the space was suitable, I noticed a tiny sign advertising seedling plants for sale. How appropriate I thought. Our enlarged version in the final image was copied from the real thing.
Be sure to visit Anne Geddes’ Instagram page at: @annegeddesofficial
In 2017, Anne was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.
- Anne Geddes – “12 Days of Christmas” - November 23, 2023
- Anne Geddes – “123 POTS” - August 3, 2023
