Her whimsical, instantly recognisable pictures swept the globe in the 1990s. Yet she has rarely been treated with reverence. As she prepares for her first big retrospective, she discusses the secrets of her 40-year career
When Anne Geddes began shooting her famous photographs, she soon learned she would need a backup baby – or 20. “Connecting with a child who considers you a stranger is high stress,” she says. “I remember trying to shoot one baby sitting in a tank of water, surrounded by waterlilies. It took five babies to make it work. One of them was even called Lily, but she was not having a bar of it. She looked at me as if to say: ‘You think I’m getting in that water?’”
She describes the practicalities of one of her best-known shots, 1991’s Cabbage Kids. It shows twin brothers Rhys and Grant with cabbage-leaf hats on their heads, each sitting in an upturned cabbage, turning to one another with mild alarm. Geddes’ assistant had tied a balloon to a piece of string, lowering it between them and whipping it up the moment they turned. Geddes got the shot.