Endless Reproduction was launched during World Childless Week 2022.  I was in conversation about the work with Dr Olga Smith at The Photographers’ Gallery, London in November 2022 and the book was featured in The Guardian Trying to conceive, a photographic journey in pictures.

The photographs were made during the years I was unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant. When I looked back at the hundreds of images I had been making, I realised there was an unexpected layer of synchronicity with the photographs and my lived experience. The photographs in the book echo the stages in my life; a hopeful beginning and faith in nature, moving through medical interventions and a belief that eventually fades. The photographs start in nature, shift through domestic rooms, and come to rest in a no-man’s land of studio and darkroom interiors.

Excerpt from Chapter One: ‘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… I leave the room and the birds continue to photograph.’

The photographs in the book were taken with automatic camera triggers that fire the shutter in response to changes in movement, sound or light; giving control over to the equipment and the subject. In Endless Reproduction birds document the human nest, apples photograph themselves falling up trees and balls hang in clusters in front of our vision while futile and wrong-headed experiments flash intermittently in the dark.

‘As open as she is about her personal circumstances, at times, Stidolph pointedly subtracts herself from the work. Even the act of pressing the shutter feels too personal, too deliberate, too charged, too active.’ ‘A body, in parts, interjects’, essay by Lizzie Lloyd, for Synesthesia, 2021

‘It’s a little bit like talking a little bit quietly, lowering the tone of your voice. Looking at your images, there is someone speaking very softly and I have to tune in and pay attention, but if you catch the attention of that one person that is willing to listen, that’s very beautiful’. Paola Paleari, Curator

The book is the development of a body of work first shown at Campbell Works gallery, London. With grateful thanks to Cameron Leadbetter of Shining Studio for the beautiful design and Nick Cooney of Studio Cooney for brilliant work preparing the images for print and to all the wonderful supporters of the Kickstarter campaign.

A copy of the book incl. postage and packing in the UK is £34. Please order through below link. Please contact me at info@melaniestidolph.com for overseas postings or if any queries.