Birth reportage

First seconds of Jibbe by Ruth Besselink.

Birth reportage is a genre in photography which has the birth of a human as its subject.

The photo reportage is an invention of the 1930’s by mostly well-educated émigrés from Germany who intended to tell a researched story through photography which they published in popular magazines. In 2005 Ruth Besselink took up the genre of reportage for an experimental project in photography which she called ‘First Seconds’. First Seconds literally records the first seconds of a human life and shows birth in a series of images that seek to register the character of child and parents in their most intimate, powerful, and instinctive moment.

The birth reportage of Ruth Besselink does not stay within the genre however. It uses both the tools of description and artistic interpretation, applying them in the service of inquiry and expression. It holds the middle between portraiture and reportage, using artistic photography to investigate human nature. It is neither a mere report of events, nor merely the quest for a beautiful picture. This makes that the images are intended to be expressive and respectful, but at the same time revealing and telling.