Permissions, photographer Emma Hardy's first monograph, is a tender account of motherhood and childhood, love and longing, and leaving home. Drawn and distilled from Hardy's personal archive, its images span twenty years. An exhibition at 10 14 Gallery, London, from 1 December to 27 January accompanied the book's publication.
 
Recognisable moments of domestic life alternate with more idyllic scenes. The images reveal Hardy's attempts to balance a creative professional life with motherhood, watching her children grow and change as her relationship with her own mother matures. Each chapter is introduced by a large-format still life of native flowers, made as a farewell during the family's final spring at home. As the book progresses, Hardy's children become increasingly independent and begin venturing beyond the frame. The project reached a natural conclusion when the family moved away.
 
"The world gives colours to the child, and the child arranges them, cuts them into shapes, learns their names and says them for the first time. Animals, fruit, leaves, water... Of course, most of these colours and shapes are supplied not by an abstract, indistinct world, but by the mother... Understanding the mother's presence in the child's mind is not unlike looking at a family album: one person, the photographer, is usually absent, yet integral not only to the making of the photograph but to the scene, to life itself." —Alice Zoo, from the book's essay.