Becoming a parent is not only about joy, happiness, love, and fulfillment. It can also trigger anger, despair, exhaustion, fear, and pain, as photographer Janine Bächle demonstrates in her long-term, autobiographical project, ‘Becoming Parents’. Bächle documented her pregnancy with an unvarnished lens, breaking taboos by showing unfiltered bodily details and functions. Through her sensitive yet shockingly honest photographs, Bächle documents her everyday family life, the changes in her body, and the emotional spectrum of becoming a parent. She deliberately sees her project as a realistic counterpoint to the romanticized images in relevant guidebooks and magazines and the perfect self-portrayals on social media. In addition to making care work visible, the book shows the struggle with feelings such as aggression, sadness, and fundamental doubts about parenthood. By juxtaposing her photographs with diary entries, lab results, and birth records, the narrative oscillates between control and collapse. The result is an indissoluble tension between image, word, and document that captivates viewers and allows them to experience the intensity and vulnerability of becoming a parent.’ The body of work consists of a combination of different materials: analogue and digital photographs, filmstrips, reproductions of documents as well as video still frame details. It also includes poems and journal excerpts by the photographer along with an accompanying text by art historian Joanna Wolfarth. Five chapters, each beginning with a poem, structure the body of work. The intimate and slow medium of a high-quality photo book allows viewers to take their time and engage with the work again and again.