How photographer Anna Grevenitis depicts her daughter’s life with Down syndrome

A protective mother’s eyes are the first thing you see when you look at Anna Grevenitis’ photographs. Shot in black and white, the self-portraits of her and her daughter tell stories of the mundane – ironing, making the bed, putting on makeup and getting the train into town. The scenes are so normal, so unremarkable that to look feels like spying on moments we shouldn’t be privy to.

Which is the point. “It comes very much from the experience we have in the street,” says French-born photographer Grevenitis, speaking over Zoom from her home in New York. Her gaze directly into the lens of her camera is the same look she gives people when their eyes linger on her daughter Lulu, a 16-year-old with Down syndrome. “I’m expressing surprise. I want to show intrusion in the shot. We get looked at by people just because she looks different – not so much because of her behaviour, she's a very quiet kid – but her disability is visible. When I create the scenes, I'm imagining the same people that are looking at us in the street are in the house.”

Her steely gaze is reserved for us, however. The tenderness between her and Lulu is palpable.

This series, titled Regard, grew from a separate project Grevenitis has been working on since 2013. She began taking a picture of her daughter every day, setting out to “document her daily life in something that I felt was a true rendering of what it means to live as a nine-year-old in Brooklyn, going to public school, but having Down syndrome”. As Lulu grew older however, Grevenitis began to feel more and more as though she was exposing her daughter.

“Even though I wanted to show that there is a lot of normalcy in her life, I was also not protecting her. I was exposing her and her life, but what about me and mine? It was almost like street documentary from afar, because I wasn't really involving her. I struggled for so long with the idea of street photography, because you are taking something out of these people and you’re not exposing yourself because you’re behind the camera.”

There was only one thing for it: collaboration. With Regard, through carefully staging each shot, she was able to give Lulu some control over the process and gradually it became a pursuit of equal involvement.

Not only has the project lit the creative spark in Lulu (“when we have friends over,  she goes around and sneaks pictures of everything and everybody, she doesn't tell us – we call her the sneak photographer”), but it has enriched their relationship, says Grevenitis. “Maybe at a time when mother-daughter relationships get a little frayed because of teenage-hood, when the trope is that the mum is trying to push some agenda and the daughter is rebelling, through this we’re working on something together. I’m not pushing it on her, so it’s making us more like partners.”

One picture, which shows Lulu ironing while her mum eats macarons on the bed, was directed by the 16-year-old. “Each time I show her the picture, I remind her, ‘Lulu, you created that’ because I want her to take ownership of all this.”

Grevenitis is aware, however, that as Lulu grows things might change. She says there could be a sell-by-date on her daily picture series and may stop when she reaches 18 years old. Her son, one year Lulu’s junior, has asked her to stop taking her camera out when they go places. “He’s like, ‘I don’t want that’ and I respect it. If she was to tell me stop doing it, I would absolutely stop.”

But with Regard, there’s no sign of slowing down just yet. “She likes the spotlight, she sees the aspect of putting on a show – we're not putting on outfits or wigs, but she will drop anything she is watching or doing to get involved.”

Taking on photography slightly later on (having taught English literature and composition before the children came along), Grevenitis has come to see the ability to photograph her daughter as a superpower.