In this series, shot for Atmos Volume 9: Kinship, photographer Charlie Engman centers his mother, Kathleen McCain Engman, in his story of kinship.

This isn’t the first time McCain Engman has appeared in the photographer’s work; the mother-son duo have collaborated many times in the past, including in his 2020 book MOM, where he challenges the familiarity of their relationship to shed light on his mother’s many selves. Engman says he began photographing his mother, who is also an artist, chef, and interior stylist, several years ago when he began to realize how quickly something so familiar can become invisible.

“Mothers in particular, the fact of whom is an inescapable precondition for all human life, have a tendency to disappear and reappear in this way.”

For Engman, his mom has always been an internalized part of him. By taking her portraits, he externalizes her in a way that shows who she is more clearly—not just to him, but to a world where mothers too often go unseen. 

This notion eventually led him to think of another entity that is similarly taken for granted: Mother Nature. Through these images of his mother adorned in nature’s gifts, such as lettuce and berries, he highlights a similarity between how we view human mothers and how we view Mother Earth, looking to explore the question: how do we honor the natural kinship that comes with motherhood?