Naked Babies Feature
Naked Babies Overview
In Naked Babies, Nick Kelsh and Anna Quindlen collaborate to produce a unique view of babies—one that owes nothing to tradition, sentimentality, or the cult of the cute. Unlike traditional baby photographs, Nick Kelsh’s amazing black-and-white pictures focus on specific aspects of babies—the perfection of a hand, the swirls of a cowlick, the smoothness of skin on the neck—and all are honest, exquisite, and invitingly tactile.
Anna Quindlen’s essays are as graceful, snappy, perceptive, and personal as anything she has ever written. They muse on what it is about babies that causes our hearts to crinkle and fold: “The meaning of life is in them.”
You’ll share some of the things that Quindlen has learned as a mother, such as: “From time to time, I would lie on the floor with my babies to see exactly what they were seeing when it looked as though they were just wasting time” and . . . “The next time you’re sitting in a meeting after three cups of coffee, badly needing to go to the bathroom but instead doodling dutifully, crossing your legs and watching the clock, remember that if you were a baby, you would have gone by now, and no one would be the wiser.”
Kelsh’s photographs and Quindlen’s text complement each other perfectly. Two masters of their craft have created an unusual meditation and wondrous book—a totally original gift for every parent or parent-to-be.
Naked Babies Specifications
Anyone who has ever witnessed a baby escape from his mother's arms--sans clothing--and run wildly, or crawl as the case may be, about the house in what can only be described as a euphoric state knows that babies are really at their best when they're naked. No bonnets or booties to hold them in--just pure, blissful nakedness. In
Naked Babies author Anna Quindlen and photographer Nick Kelsh expertly record this unique time in childhood when modesty means nothing at all. Quindlen's perceptive and personal essays are remarkable musings on motherhood and the amazing little miracles that babies are, while Kelsh's photographs are, well, amazing little miracles in their own right. Shot entirely in black-and-white, these are not cutesy, sentimental, or traditional photographs. Rather, Kelsh captures "specific aspects of babies--the perfection of a hand, the swirls of a cowlick, the smoothness of skin on the neck--and all are honest, exquisite, and invitingly tactile." Both "an unusual meditation and a wondrous book,"
Naked Babies is the perfect gift for the parent or the parent-to-be.
Customer Reviews
I purchased this book years ago, and ever since I have pulled it out every once in awhile and sighed over the amazing pictures of babyhood.
Since having my two children, this book means even more to me. It captures the perfection of babies in their natural state - naked and joyous. The shape of an ear, the way a baby cries with all their breath, the flushed cheek of a sleeping child. I could never take photographs this well, but it perfectly captures the way I want to show my children - perfect in their everyday way.
Anna's text that accompanies the photographs wonderfully captures the bittersweet knowledge of every mother that first lays eyes on their newborn and knows that they are going to grow up so fast. Every mother can't help but see their children as they were when they were babies; naked and perfect. No matter how old our children are, they are still our babies.
This book is an amazing celebration of babyhood. The perfect gift for a baby shower, or any parent.
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