Some of my dear friends were caring for a little girl a couple of weeks old, a foster baby, whose mother loved her but could not care for her because of drugs.
She came to set wrapped in a blanket and slept in the arms of our Mary while we quietly made the picture.
Leading up to the shoot I thought mostly about logistics… like how to get straw to the cave (a 4-wheel drive away). My friend/producer Steve Porter scouted the location south of the Valley in Arizona.
I also thought a lot about family. Specifically, the iconic Mary and Joseph.
I see them showing up for the Holy Baby Jesus with new clarity.
But it took me years to see something else in the frame. My friends were doing the same showing-up for another little stranger. That holy little foster baby.
The most cosmic story in Scripture turns on a quiet act of submission by a mom and a dad to the life of a Baby.
Inside the cave, a man chooses to be a father to a child that was not biologically his.
In this set you'll find 3 Nativity pictures that look almost exactly alike, but they all say something unique.
In "Father", he guards the cave entrance.
In "Husband", he leans toward sleeping Mary in tenderness.
In "Son", he looks up to heaven, reckoning with the truth that this child is more than his.
The "Angels" piece is the supernatural counterpart. A horizontal composite of what heaven was doing overhead while Joseph said yes. (Which we made by jumping on a trampoline! World-renowned Hollywood retouch artist Robb Carr retouched it. He came from the handcrafted pre-AI era.)
Collectors tell me the Nativity images cycle in and out with the seasons.
They always come out at Christmas.
But they also come out for Advent, for a baby blessing, for the season when a family is celebrating a new child or remembering a Christmas they barely got through.
Then the art goes back into storage until the next season of wonder. An heirloom rotation.
A tradition piece.
A thing the kids learn to expect when the boxes come down from the attic.
Some of my dear friends were caring for a little girl a couple of weeks old, a foster baby, whose mother loved her but could not care for her because of drugs.
She came to set wrapped in a blanket and slept in the arms of our Mary while we quietly made the picture.
Leading up to the shoot I thought mostly about logistics… like how to get straw to the cave (a 4-wheel drive away). My friend/producer Steve Porter scouted the location south of the Valley in Arizona.
I also thought a lot about family. Specifically, the iconic Mary and Joseph.
I see them showing up for the Holy Baby Jesus with new clarity.
But it took me years to see something else in the frame. My friends were doing the same showing-up for another little stranger. That holy little foster baby.
The most cosmic story in Scripture turns on a quiet act of submission by a mom and a dad to the life of a Baby.
Inside the cave, a man chooses to be a father to a child that was not biologically his.
In this set you'll find 3 Nativity pictures that look almost exactly alike, but they all say something unique.
In "Father", he guards the cave entrance.
In "Husband", he leans toward sleeping Mary in tenderness.
In "Son", he looks up to heaven, reckoning with the truth that this child is more than his.
The "Angels" piece is the supernatural counterpart. A horizontal composite of what heaven was doing overhead while Joseph said yes. (Which we made by jumping on a trampoline! World-renowned Hollywood retouch artist Robb Carr retouched it. He came from the handcrafted pre-AI era.)
Collectors tell me the Nativity images cycle in and out with the seasons.
They always come out at Christmas.
But they also come out for Advent, for a baby blessing, for the season when a family is celebrating a new child or remembering a Christmas they barely got through.
Then the art goes back into storage until the next season of wonder. An heirloom rotation.
A tradition piece.
A thing the kids learn to expect when the boxes come down from the attic.
