5/6/26

Baby-Sitting Claire Symmetrical Photographs, 2026 Inkjet print project

BabySitting Claire 
Symmetrical Photographs
An Inkjet Print Project ~ May, 2026    



Introduction
The symmetrical photographs you will see in this Inkjet Print Project were printed in April, 2026.  Most of the images were originally published in a four-part blog project ten year ago (2016) entitled Babysitting Photographs.  I encourage you will see in relation to what I have to show you here.

I made the camera (source) images for most of these four-fold symmetrical constructions in February, March and early April of 2016 while my wife Gloria and I were caring for our 13 month old grand daughter, Claire.  We stayed with Clair at home, while her parents were at work.  Our babysitting days, often stretching over an eight or nine hour period, was filled with giving Clair our full, undivided attention; and, when possible, during Claire's naps, I would make a few photographs when Gloria wasn't having me do some other household chores which were intended to help out Claire's her very busy parents.

I took a few pictures during the day when I was pushing Claire around in her stroller.  I created a series of images that were my fantasy of what our 13 month old grand daughter was seeing as I was racing her around the house.  Those photographs mostly have a low point of view to represent what I thought Claire was seeing from her stroller. 

However, during our last week of full-time babysitting, I began feeling the energy to make more photographs than usual.  Earlier, I had often felt frustrated with the way the baby sitting appeared to be preventing me from my usual preoccupations with my creative process in photographic picture making.  Alternately, I did often find my creative play time with Claire very satisfying, and I knew intellectually that I never loose anything in my Creative Process, no matter what appears to be getting in the way.  I also knew that sometimes my creative energy would build up, percolate and then explode at some point with lota of pictures in a very short period of time.   Indeed! . . .  the original 2016 four-part project--and this 2026 follow-up project--is surely proof of that.

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Ten years ago I could not really see how interesting many of the symmetrical images I made back then actually were.  These newly printed version of the earlier unprinted works are a more critically and I think more articulately produced collection of images, with a few added new ones.  

(Note: My symmetrical photographs are made with what I call my  "straight" camera-made images, or "source" images, which I then duplicate four times and conjoin together into what I call four-fold symmetrical photographic constructions.) 

Back in 2023 when I started working on my Inkjet Print Project (2023-2026) I did not print most of the images you will see in this project.  I think this new set of images was influenced by the work I included in my recent (2026) Inkjet Print Project MC Escher & Mannerism.  So many of the images in that project fell into a category of images I like to refer to as "Quirky" photographs. To my great surprise, while looking back at the early versions of my Babysitting photographs, many of my symmetrical photographs did have that Quirky (odd, funny, surprising) look and feel for me!  Several others have a numinous or mysterious quality which I feel fall into a category of imagery that I would--more often in the past--refer to as Sacred Art, or Symbolic Photographs, images radiant with a subtle kind of light, or, in other words, grace. 

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Immediately below, the Birthday Balloon image served as the title photograph for Part I of the early blog Project.  And below the image I have provided the title links to the four parts of the original project.  We began babysitting Claire about a month after she turned one year old, and the balloon was still hanging up-against the ceiling of Claire's "play room" (which, I mean to say, includes all parts of her house!).  I couldn't resist taking the picture as a kind of "time marker" for the entire experience.  

Claire slept very little during the time we spent with her.  She loved playing with us playing with her toys and being strolled through the house (the faster the better!)  The balloon picture is an example of the kind of picture which represented for me my fantasy of what Claire was seeing from insider her stroller.

The symmetrical images, on the other had, are quite another matter.  In general, they are for me primarily about transformation--a  kind of "visual-spiritual transcendence" of my ordinary everyday existential reality into an image that provides me with glimpses of what I like to refer to as the Oneness of Being.

Note: I hope you will take the time to click on the images once, then once again, for the highest quality of image that can be attained with blog reproduced images using a laptop or desktop computer.  Please see the note that precedes my presentation of the newly printed images I have made for this project.  




Fig. 2  2016 Babysitting Photographs     Part 1,  Sleeping Baby Claire In her Stroller  



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The 2026 Newly printed 
Symmetrical Photographs
from the 2016 Babysitting blog project 

A note regarding who best to view the images below if you are using a desktop or laptop computer:
It's essential to see my symmetrical photographs enlarged and viewed in an alternate viewing
space that can be initiated by clicking on each image with your cursor; this will present the
the image in a dark-tone viewing space.  A second click will enlarge the image.  If you
want to enlarge or reduce the image after the second click, you can use your
command +/- sign to zoom in or out as desired; and if you want to lighter 
or darken your viewing screen, you can do that manually via your 
keyboard.  To return to the project page after viewing the
image use the return arrow in the corner of the screen.
This viewing option will give you the sharpest,
most refined image quality possible.
Click here for more details.



Image #1  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026) 18x18" Inkjet print
A Quirky, seemingly chaotic array of Baby Claire's Plastic Toys
(which She and her Grandparents often played with together!!)  

Image #2 Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  18x18" Inkjet print
 A Miniature (8"x"5") Plastic Wall Decoration transformed into
a double-framed four-fold 18x18" symmetrical image

Image #3  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  18x18" Inkjet print
 Reflections of Unknown Objects In a Corner Mirror surrounded by soft light pulses


Image #4  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  18x18" Inkjet print
Gray Couch Pillows


 Image #5  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  15x15" Inkjet print
Double Chandeliers Conjoined with their lights dimmed


Image #6  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026) 18x18" Inkjet print
Circles of Ivy with Wings of Light


Image #7  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026) 18x18" Inkjet print (made in May, 2026)
Ivy hanging in front of a screened window that looks out over the back deck, gully and flowering 
trees in the spring of 2014, about an year and a half before Claire was born.

Image #8  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  18x18" Inkjet print
Inside view of the Front Door's Pebbled Glass Window 
 (a Christmas Wreath is hanging on the door outside)   

 Image #9  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  21x21" Inkjet Print  
Snow and Ice forms suspended behind a screened sliding glass door.  
Visible in the background is a gully and an active stream. 

 Image #10 Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  18x18" Inkjet Print   
Fountains of Ice on the Kitchen Skylight Window  


Image #11  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  18x18" Inkjet print
The Picture Window viewed from the inside, with a Star and House Plants;
and outside, snow and green plants

 Image #12  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  18x18" Inkjet Print
"Friendly Apparition" 
   (A four-fold symmetrical transformation #1 of Baby Claire's shimmering
         hand smudge image left on the glass surface of a mirror)      

Image #13  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  18x18"
"Scary Apparition" 
"Finger shapes appearing on the surface of a Glass Mirror"
   (A four-fold symmetrical transformation #2 of Baby Claire's shimmering
        hand smudge image left on the glass surface of a mirror)
(Note: I dedicate this image to the current May 2026 political crisis all of us here in the USA are experiencing.)


 Image #14  Symmetrical BabySitting Photographs (2026)  21x21" Inkjet print
"Blue Angel"
 (. . . appearing in the Setting Sun's Golden Winter Light, 
(with Tree Limb Shadows projected upon the surface of the Picture Window)
Visit my Blue Angels project 


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I invite you to visit Part IV of the early 2016 blog project 
which contains some commentaries I wrote on a 
few selected images. 
 
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This Inkjet Print Project was published 
on my blog in May, 2026, ten years
after the original blog version
 of the four-part project
Babysitting  2016


Related Links:

Blue Angels  An 2023  Inkjet Print Blog Project revised 2026

Welcome Page  to The Departing Landscape blog-website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.













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Posted by Steven D. Foster at 10:00 AM