Tiny in the Bathroom with Ray Shon and Tyrese, Seattle, Washington, USA, 2003
(catalog number 409O-065-010)

I'VE KEPT in contact with Tiny for more than twenty years. During that time, she has had nine children, five of them with different fathers. Even when she was 13 years old she insisted that she wanted to have ten children. I know her five older children much better than I know the four younger ones. I was there for Daylon's birth, and I watched LaShawndrea and Keanna Rose grow from babies into teenage girls. Daylon, her oldest boy, is now 19 years old. He is tall and handsome. He has already spent time in juvenile detention. He lives with Tiny. LaShawndrea and Keanna, the two oldest girls, live with Katie, Tiny’s aunt. Keanna is a strong willed and confident teenager. The broken family has hurt LaShawndrea the most. Whenever she talks about her mother, big tears roll down her cheeks.

I try to photograph Tiny every few years. I want to continue to do this for the rest of my life. Every time I go to see her, it's as if I never left. I pick up the camera and start to work. My relationship with her has always been as her "personal photographer," and it's one that we're both comfortable with.

When Martin and I saw her in December of 2003, she was living with her husband and her five younger children. Her husband, Will, had fathered the three youngest children. They were living in a cramped apartment. Ray Shon was 6 when I took this picture. He is Tiny's fifth child. He is an adorable and loving boy.

More recently, Martin and I returned to Seattle. We were going to photograph the birth of her ninth child. Although she scheduled a C-section, she went into labor a month early, so we missed the birth. Even so, we spent time with her and her family. She had promised me that this would definitely be her last child, but she changed her mind. She says she wants at least two more.