Becoming a Photographer Because of My Mom, and Despite Her
A belated Mother's Day post for Ida
In the Flash is a reader-supported publication about intent and creativity in photography.
Whenever someone asks me about how I started photographing, I tell the story of my mom giving me my first digital camera for my birthday, which jumpstarted a switch from a long-planned medical career to an uncertain future in the arts. But that's not the whole story. The camera wasn't an isolated, random incident. My mom, Ida, had been inadvertently molding me into an "artist" since before I was born. When she was pregnant with me, mom would spend her days looking through art books, wishing into existence a talented baby. The moment I could process visual information, mom padded the walls of our small Donetsk bathroom with cut-outs of classical paintings. The earliest memories of brushing my teeth are paired with the shadowy faces of Renaissance portraits and Impressionists landscapes. I was born a leftie, which in a Soviet school system was unacceptable, so mom would tie my left hand behind my back, forcing me to use the right one (she succeeded, and, to this day, I'm ambidextrous). But when she finally untied my left hand, I suddenly started drawing with it, and drawing well. Mom instantly encouraged this, and I spent all my childhood hearing her praise and imagining myself as a future painter. She supported everything — I took painting classes, spent a year in an art school, and was a staff artist with my high school magazine. I wrote decent poetry. I took ballet. So, it was to my great surprise that when I declared my plan to major in painting and art history at NYU, mom suddenly put her foot down. "Pre-med or law," she said. "Art is a hobby, not a profession."
I felt somewhat cheated, but believed that mom had my best interest in mind, and so I put myself through a psychology degree and four years of pre-med. As graduation loomed closer, a dark void would swoop in, crippling me with anxiety. I took the MCATs with the same excitement as if I were committing myself to prison. Then came my birthday. Just as I was about to send out medical school application, mom gifted me my first digital camera, immaculately wrapped with a bow (mom was a professional at giving presents). The rest, as they say, is history.
First, however, came the Dark Ages. As an unemployed photographer, I lived with my parents throughout my 20s, and many evenings I overheard them discuss what a disappointment I turned out to be. Mom would lament all the hard work and effort she put into me. She regretted encouraging my various art hobbies and partly blamed herself for my failure. My parents were so embarrassed by my new career choice, that they encouraged me to lie to my 86-year-old grandmother because they were afraid the truth would literally kill her. For five years, I spun stories about my non-existent medical school experiences, and when my grandmother died, she was proud of me for becoming a doctor.
Eventually, my career started taking off. I was making a living with photography and working with magazines. My photos were in print in the New York Times and National Geographic. My parents finally conceded. Mom became supportive of my career, saving all my publications and showing them off to her friends. She was, once again, proud of me. Unfortunately, that didn't last long. In 2017, she was diagnosed with metastatic cancer and died within two years.
Mom and I were the same sort of stubborn and strong-willed people, and we used to fight. A lot. One of the things we fought about was Mother’s Day. She wanted to celebrate it, while I refused to honor what I considered a made-up holiday. Mom felt slighted, and I felt righteous as I tried to educate her about the commercial idiocy of this Hallmark tradition. We never ended up celebrating it. Since then, Mother’s Day has become the hardest day of the year for me. Guilt and regret flood back every Sunday morning as I wake up to all the social timelines filled with Mother's Day wishes. And I wish I wasn't so damn stubborn.
My relationship with mom was marked by such constant push-and-pull, both of us fiercely trying to mold one another. She was undeniably better than me at that game. Without her early art education, I would have never become a photographer. But she also taught me resilience and how to fight for things I believe in, even if these lessons often ended up turning against her. And, somewhat poetically, the first image I ever fell in love with was this photo of my mom, taken in her early 20s. To this day, this surreal, sun-tinged image is often in the back of my mind.
When I started this newsletter, the first thing I thought was how proud mom would be to see my career take unexpected turns and just how much she would have liked to read these posts. She was voracious in her curiosity and her appetite for new things, new information, and new experiences. She was constantly pushing forward and bettering herself, and, luckily for my sister and me, she passed that relentless vitality down to us as well.
Even though I am many years and one day late, this Mother's Day post is for my mom.
Happy Mother’s Day! I love you.
Find me on Instagram, @dina_litovsky
Dina, as someone who has had their own controversies with their mother, I found this such a stunning, emotional and truthful read. Your depth as a photographer and writer always inspires.
Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing your story so openly.