Shaun Connell
There are photographs you take because of light or timing or luck. And then there are the ones that take hold of you. This is that photo for me.
It’s a portrait of my mum. My only parent. A single mother. Taken just months before she passed away in 2013, after nearly two years of illness. And it is, without question, the most important image I have ever taken.
What makes it important isn’t technique or even timing. It’s the way it captures her spirit - that deep, unwavering presence that everyone who knew her remembers. It’s in her eyes. Her skin. The quiet set of her mouth. It’s in the way she looks beyond the frame as though seeing something more.
That spirit had already defied expectation. In a single night, she suffered three cardiac arrests. An event that would have killed an Olympic athlete in their prime. But she survived. Thirty days later, she walked out of hospital. And then she did what she always did. She got on with it. Because that’s who she was. Life didn’t define her by what knocked her down, but by how she chose to stand again.
She was a woman who had lived. Who had loved. Who had crossed rivers I’ll never fully know to become who she was. Mother. Nurturer. Leader. Friend. She was no-nonsense, but full of heart. Faith carried her, and it shows here, even in her weakness. Especially in it.
Mum was a nurse for most of her working life. She had once dreamed of becoming a doctor, but falling pregnant with me changed that path. Even so, she never stopped caring. She trained as a midwife, and in her final role she specialised in nursing premature babies. It was work she cherished, because she believed deeply that every child deserved the best possible start in life.
I remember one of her colleagues saying that everyone on the team had a specific strength, but my mum had them all. Her dedication, her skill, her professionalism – it shone through in everything she did. She really was that special.
At her funeral, I opened the eulogy with these words:
“To my uncles and aunts she was big sis. To my cousin D she was the chief dumpling maker. To the premature baby she was life. To their parents, she was hope. To her colleagues she was a safe pair of hands. To her friends she was true. While to me, she was mum.”
This isn’t a polished portrait. It’s unguarded. Raw. Honest. It was taken in a moment of stillness, created after 42 years of shared life and a few quiet minutes. And somehow, it holds all of that. Her fullness. Her softness. Her power.
The photograph was taken during a short ad break while she sat in her favourite chair. She didn’t like photos of herself, so I was told to hurry up. That was her. Direct. No fuss. She was immensely private. And yet, even in those few minutes, something quiet and profound settled in the frame.
In those final two years, I learned more about her than I had in the forty before. I came to understand that she needed no permission to be who she was. She had been raised with a Psalm 139:14 kind of self-worth. She knew she was fearfully and wonderfully made, and she lived like it. I might have been her major stakeholder, but she valued every person in her life. Friends. Family. Colleagues. Her church. Her patients and their families. Everyone mattered.
It’s a portrait her friends recognise. It’s one her family sees and says, “yes, that’s her.” And remarkably, it’s one that even strangers connect with. They see the strength. The grace. The truth of a Black woman shaped by faith, family and fierce love.
When I look at this image, I see resilience. I see struggle. I see hope. I hear the echoes of her voice as she prayed for all of us before going to bed. I believe we’re still covered by those prayers now.
This photograph keeps me grounded. It reminds me of who I come from. It holds memory and grief, love and legacy, all in one frame. It’s a visual reflection of Black motherhood that rarely makes it into the mainstream. A truth we don’t often see, but should.
Though I had no choice in being born her son, I’m endlessly grateful that I was. She was a colossus. A gift from God. Not everyone is born to such a loving, protecting, enabling parent. She shaped me, not just as her son, but as the photographer I’ve become. The perspective. The love of monochrome. The drive to tell the truth, beautifully.
This is more than a photo. It’s a tribute. A testimony. And most of all, it’s a thank you.
About Shaun Connell
Shaun Connell is the founder of theBLKGZE.
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