You cannot be everything all at once

I don’t know what you’ve been told, though

(No audio version this month because I was fighting for my life over half term…🫠)

Currently: All dressed up with nowhere to go.

Reading: The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates

Watching: White Lotus on NOW TV

Listening: Backwards Remix by Jorja Smith and Dirty Danger

Thinking: About a trip to Disneyland Paris…because why not?

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I gave up photography for motherhood, but that sounds more dramatic than it actually was.

My last shoot was a personal project in a makeshift photography studio in a friend’s event and workshop space. To take the photographs, I had to sit on a stool, legs spread akimbo, because I was too pregnant to stand. We played ‘Babylon’ by SZA (featuring Kendrick Lamar) on repeat.

‘Was it worth it? Would you do it again? Aren’t you tired of always making amends?’

After posting the finished portrait, a curator friend asked if I was going to turn it into a series. I hadn’t considered it, but could immediately imagine the portraits, printed A3 or even A2 size on C Type Fuji Pearl paper, the glossy metallic finish communicating the transcendence I felt as I conceptualised the image in my mind. The series never happened because, well, life… childbirth… motherhood, etc.

But after giving birth I still took photographs, even if I could only manage a shoot with my son tracking his monthly growth or artfully posed selfies trying to capture the reality of trying to freelance with a small child clinging to my front/back/side.

These images were always underexposed because I could only stage these pictures when he was sleeping and the light was appropriately dim. And it always failed to match whatever Instagram aesthetic I was chasing.

*

Whenever I would post my new baby to Instagram my likes would triple, leaping into the 100s – sometimes even 200+. It was a sure formula but the temptation to sail this wave of instant popularity was curbed by a mix of safeguarding training from my time as a social media moderator and observing enough of the latent ‘mumfluencer’ culture to see how weird it could be. Why were people accusing absolute strangers of child abuse due to choices around male circumcision? But similarly, why should absolute strangers know whether your infant son had a foreskin?

Social media audience or not, the desire to document was still there. I would venture out with my Canon 5D and my son, and try to take pictures of whatever I found interesting. It always ended up being pictures of him, because it was impossible to keep one eye on a curious toddler and the other eye pressed to the DSLR’s viewfinder. Impossible and irresponsible. But my son didn’t really like being photographed, and I wasn’t trying to be the Black British Sally Mann (a critically acclaimed American photographer famous for her intimate and sometimes controversial photographs of her children).

What I was trying to do was find myself outside of motherhood again, and only being able to photograph my son felt in complete opposition to that. I was trying to hang onto some imagined version of myself that I was realising was a bit ridiculous and impractical, and in doing so, I was also making rubbish photographs which made me question my own abilities and compounded my creative misery.

*

When my son was two years old I was invited to assist on a film set. I can’t remember if it was for a TV show or if it was an ad shoot, but the invite came in my Instagram DMs from someone I knew and admired (and is now very famous so I feel like I don’t really know them anymore).

The opportunity excited me. At the time, I wasn’t doing much so this felt like a line of possibility casting out into the dark – who knew where one professional TV (or ad) credit might take me. There was one issue though: it was an overnight shoot.

“I don’t know if I can make it work,” I told this person I still admire to this day.

“Don’t let motherhood limit you,” they replied, going on to explain how women often said no before considering if they could even say yes.

Their response stung. I wanted to reply, ‘That all sounds great in theory, but my son doesn’t exist in theory. Do you have any suggestions of where he’ll be when I’m on set?’ But of course, my actual response sounded much more meek and appropriately chastised.

The rage and resentment was sudden, like a match being struck in the darkness. They had no idea – no idea! Did they not think I wanted it as much as someone else because I didn’t have options of who to leave my toddler with overnight? They had no effin’ idea!

‘I can't recall the last time I took advice from anyone…’

Soon after that interaction, whenever anyone asked what I ‘did’, I told them that I was a full-time mother, hoping to stop any awkward conversation. I learned how to say it with a defiant look in my eye that dared someone to question me. I remember a guy working for TfL who was clearly angling for my number stumbling over his response before saying, “That’s good! You don’t really hear many women happy to just focus on the motherhood thing.”

But if ever someone dared to ask what I did besides raising my son, probing to find if there was anything else that caught my interest or attention, most of the time I still replied, “Nothing,” my face deadpan and direct. It wasn’t even that I was trying to cut a conversation short, I just didn’t want to feel as foolish as I did that day in the DMs.

*

Academics had always come easy to me, so going down the visual art route was a testament to my stubbornness.

Back in 6th form college, when I made the handbrake turn from broadcast media ambitions in first year to a visual art trajectory in my second year, my Fine Art Textile teacher would tell me that I should be studying English at university, because the notes and observations I would write on gallery visits were so good.

Being 17 years old, I took their comments as a judgement on my artistic ability and not as a comment on my obvious strengths. I was determined to not only go on to study an art degree but to get into the foundation art programme my teachers had not so subtly tried to steer me away from. I worked overtime and managed to do both.

And even when I failed that foundation art programme and got rejected from my first choice for degree level study, I reworked my portfolio, found alternative university courses (which ended up being much better suited, thank God) and still managed to get an unconditional offer for a highly respected degree programme. And even though I wanted to drop out of that programme at various points, and failed my second year entirely, I still managed to graduate a few marks short of a first class.

And even when everyone seemed unsure of my goals as a freelance photographer, and even as I was plagued with imposter syndrome, I still landed assistant roles with amazing photographers and worked on a few interesting projects. My work got published in a couple of magazines and newspapers and it was exhibited internationally, twice.

But after all of that, here I was about to give up everything I had fought so hard to become because I had a kid? Maybe I had wasted all that time and effort when I could have just gone and done the English degree and called it a bloody day.

*

When I started writing again, it was for myself first and foremost. OK, I couldn’t take photographs or make films in the way I wanted to, but I had always kept a journal and I had kept a blog on-and-off.

I was writing my way back to sanity because I had just figured out I was dealing with post natal depression. I wrote about this in a post called ‘The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done’ and it didn’t go viral or anything but off the back of it I got asked to do a TedX talk at Covent Garden and that post combined with other pieces I’d written about marriage also started a conversation about a parenting and family column for Media Diversified (RIP).

Between that and other bits for MTV UK and Christian Today, I was writing more and an editor read a post I had written for Black Ballad and sent me a handwritten letter asking if I wanted to write a book. At some point I also got brought on part time as the commissioning editor at Black Ballad, and, as the saying goes, the rest is history.

*

The thing about turning a passion into a career is that it completely changes your relationship with the thing that you love.

To be honest, this had been the case with photography for a while before I stopped. In service of legitimising my freelance ambitions, I was taking on more and more work with less time to develop my artistic practice and push myself to become a better photographer. I wasn’t even charging enough to make the dead end I was photographing myself into feel worth it. I’ve always blamed pragmatism for abandoning my camera, but maybe I had already fallen out of love with it and any loyalty I felt was out of pride or habit alone.

But fast forward to today and this also means that now, writing is never just writing. It’s never as simple as “expressing myself” as, rightly or wrongly, there always feels like there are stakes attached to each sentence that I craft. Even reading is no longer purely enjoyment. Half the time I’m in research mode, rating the mechanics of plot, character and language, and the other half of the time, my brain is tracing red ink all over the author’s words on the page – “This clause is completely unnecessary…I think another word would be better suited in that metaphorical image…Ooh, yes, beautiful turn of phrase there.”

Of course it’s always for the love but it still is for ‘the love plus…’ Creative vision or idealistic ambition can feel clouded by the concerns of commerce and ego. Bestseller status, award shortlists and critical reception is never far enough from my consciousness, and they turn out to also be measuring sticks my lesser self tries to self-flagellate with.

‘Are you hating yourself? Do you really hate me? Are you hating yourself?’

*

I need a new hobby since I’ve managed to monetise all my original ones. In my search, I’ve spent more money than I care to remember on paint supplies. I had already collected two sets of paintbrushes, watercolours, pocket sketchbooks and stretched canvases, pencil sets and a set of fineliners when I finally accepted that painting was just not going to happen.

At this point, I am decades out of painting practice and the closest I’ve got to drawing anything is writing about Mimi sketching in All That We’ve Got. And still my eye is drawn to that set of acrylic paints in the middle aisle at ALDI. Shopping for the person I wish I could be? Or still trying to prove to my Textiles teacher that I really am an Artist™?

Well, at least I’ve still got the galleries.

If there is only one exhibition I visit each year, it is the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery. I first started going back in university, and in the years since I might have only missed one or two exhibitions.

When I first started attending, each year you could bet money on there being at least one crying red-headed woman and a portrait of a “noble savage” from India or Pakistan or Kenya or Namibia. It’s interesting to note how the sensibility of the judging panel changes though. Last year, there were loads of black photographers and black subjects and this year, there were trans kids, gender-non-conforming parents and drag artists in their multiples.

But besides those perfunctory observations, my inner critic is silent as I walk through the exhibition rooms. This year I found myself held captive by the portrait of a young man from the Traveller community and his horse. I stood staring at his carefully styled hair and the thoughtful but distant look on his face. It felt like we – both he and I – were suspended in motion while the men around him bartered and smoked and the visitors around me paced up and down. Even with all the other people jostling to read descriptions and get their 2.5 seconds in front of each portrait, my time in the gallery felt intimate and familiar, and it’s why I always go alone.

Outside the gallery, the entirety of Trafalgar Square was taken over by celebrations for Chinese New Year. As I walked down the cordoned off streets I saw a black woman with camera further ahead, dodging and weaving pedestrians as she followed three women carrying Chinese puppets. Once she had her shot of the brightly coloured fish dancing in the air, she turned around to walk away.

“Excuse me,” she said, approaching. “Can I take your picture? Seeing as you’re a world-famous author.”

I laughed, unsure how to respond, because while I am far from famous, how did she know I was an author? Was she trolling me?

Then the woman removed her sunglasses and I smiled in recognition as I remembered her name. We laughed and made small talk before she said she really did want to take my picture because she liked the way my hair looked in the sun.

“What are you shooting on?” I asked her, the camera in her hand exciting me for a moment.

“It’s just a Nikon…” she shrugged.

As I squinted into the prime lens, I tried to imagine what the scene might look like captured within her frame; the crowd out of focus behind me, the winter sun slanting across my face.

Photograph by Jumi Popoola

*

A friend tagged me in a picture on her Instagram Stories. It was a photograph I took of her back when we were in uni and I fancied myself a fashion photographer. At the time, I was still paying attention to the trends emerging at fashion week and I’d attend scheduled London Fashion Week shows thanks to another friend who assisted a fashion stylist and would pass on the invites for shows that their boss would not be attending.

At that point, the 2008 recession was still fresh in everyone’s mind and all the designers were obsessed with dark colours and dramatic silhouettes – shoulder pads were back. I got two friends to model for a fashion shoot I called ‘Goth Is The New Black’ – a double play on words.

But I cringed when I saw the photo again. The retouching was overdone, the lighting was too yellow, the shadows were flat and the colours were oversaturated. But I remembered how proud I was of the shoot the first time around and how much fun we had styling the outfits, for nothing but the thrill of creatively pushing ourselves and seeing ideas take shape before us. Then I realised something: all this time I was wasting money looking for a new hobby, when I could just resurrect an old one.

*

Anxiety has been kicking my backside recently. At first, I just thought I was overstimulated in the way that parents of loud, happy, boisterous children often are, but even in moments of silence my heart will be racing and I’ll feel this sense of impending doom kicking against my ribcage like someone trying to break down a door.

While I know that that nothing bad is actually happening – I am not about to be eaten alive, the house is not falling down, my children are safe and well, and I also realise that it likely is due to being in my late luteal phase – a part of me still feels like death is breathing down my neck and there is nothing I can do about it.

‘Are you hating yourself? Do you really hate me? Are you hating yourself?’

Maybe it was this lapse of general logic that made me think the perfect moment to dust off my Olympus OM-10 and my mom’s Nikon F50 would be a weekday morning when I was due to do the school run in about 45 minutes.

While the mould on the neck straps was easily dealt with with distilled vinegar and water, even with a Reddit video, my tiny screwdriver and the exposed innards of the Olympus before me, I could not get the 1978 camera to work properly again. But still, I felt like a mechanical engineer as I watched the levers and gears move as they should. Then I turned my attention to the Nikon, downloading an old user manual and cross referencing the error message flashing in the display, before finally getting the camera to do what it was created to do.

I loaded a roll of (incredibly expensive) 35mm film and began taking test shots. Composing the world as I saw it through the viewfinder felt like meditation, a way to pay attention to what was in front of me and not my racing thoughts. Nothing outside of the tiny rectangle mattered, just the click of the shutter button and the soft whir of film advancing frame by frame.

*

“How are the boys doing?”

I sigh, shake my head and release a weary laugh.

“Living their best lives at my expense – as they should.”

It’s half term. Besides this newsletter – that has been written by way of a week’s worth of stolen 5 minutes and still isn’t finished – I haven’t written a single word. The amount of other work I’ve managed to do is also laughable, and I dread catching up with my inbox next week when we are back to the usual term-time routine.

I can’t finish a coherent thought without being interrupted by someone asking for food, reporting their brother for bad behaviour or asking a random question about a subject that I know nothing about. I’m going to bed too late trying to make up for a day monopolised by children (never works, I always end up falling asleep mid-task anyway) and waking up too early due to aforementioned children, so I’m living on painkillers and caffeine and a wing and a prayer.

Two days into the week I had a day-long panic attack for no other reason than that familiar feeling of failing at everything. ‘I should have just booked this week off at work… I should have just stumped up the £400 and put them in holiday camp… I should have–’

“Easier said than done, but you probably should find a way of getting out of the house this week,” their father suggested over the phone later that evening. (There’s a reason he can’t physically be present at this time, but that’s a story for another time…maybe.)

“They are getting out of the house!” I objected. “Their whole week is scheduled with swimming and workshops and play dates and birthday parties.”

“No, I meant you, for some time by yourself.”

“Oh, yeah… not sure how that can happen right now, but yeah, probably.”

‘I can't recall the last time I took advice from anyone…’

We ended the call and instead of trying to salvage the day’s to do list, I went straight to bed.

The next day, when I felt the pressure building in my chest, I cancelled the app-making workshop, fended off the whining and complaints and dragged us all out to the local park.

“We’re going on an adventure!” I said, swinging my camera bag over my shoulder and beginning to tell them about the remnants of the Great North Wood that used to stretch across what we now know as South London and–

“You’ve told us this already,” my eldest son sulked, pulling his two hoods up over his head as he waited for me to unlock the car.

When we got to the park, my kids made a beeline for the playground.

“OK, we’ll be here for a bit then we’ll go on our adventure walk through the woods.”

I don’t think they heard me.

Tentatively, I brought out my DSLR. If I remembered correctly, a 35mm prime was the best for documentary and street photography because of the wide field of vision and minimal distortion. If I stuck to a wide aperture, I could probably get some pretty nice portraits in as well.

I wondered if the other parents at the park would be suspicious about the lady with purple hair and the camera, but soon realised they were much more engrossed in the welfare of their own children. So I kept close to my kids, taking candids and action shots. They would occasionally freeze mid-action for the camera and I had to tell them, “No, keep playing. Ignore me, I’m just testing my camera out.”

Eventually, I got restless in the enclosed playground and reminded them about the proposed “adventure”.

“I’m tired, I’m thirsty, I just want to go back to the car!” one of them moaned.

“OK, we’ll do a shorter walk,” I compromised, cutting the planned route in half.

More moans and groans, but I persevered – “showing up as the woman I wish to be” – and when they got over their complaints, I took up my camera and continued snapping; the two of them chasing each other down a hill; the moment they both stopped on the path ahead and turned back to face me with the curious frowns that children make when they’re not being self conscious about their representation; my eldest crouching in front of a break in the trees and asking me to capture him and the horizon in the background, the whole of South London laid out behind him like monarch’s train.

As we began walking up the final hill, the complaints started again.

“–and isn’t the car in that direction!”

“This way’s quicker,” I replied over my shoulder.

“No, I’m sure it’s that way.”

But I ignored him and kept on walking and after a while he followed.

*

“Are you doing work?” My eldest asked me one afternoon, sidling up to where I was sitting on the sofa.

“Yeah, but I can stop.” I said, putting down my laptop. It was Saturday, I wasn’t meant to be working anyway but of course I was trying to catch up on stuff before Monday rolled back around in all its rudeness.

“What games do you like playing on the PlayStation?”

This conversation again. My son was always trying to convince me to play on his console even though I told him I’m not really a video game person.

“Racing games and platform games, like Sonic or Crash Bandicoot.”

“OK, I have a good racing game for you!”

“Alright, let me just get something to eat first, OK?”

My son relented but kept a close eye on me as I reheated some pasta and popped olives in my mouth, scrolling through TikTok on my phone. He watched while I refilled my water bottle and then eventually sat back on the sofa, resigned to his suggestion.

He quickly handed over a control pad and I began driving as he gave me the overview of the controls and what to and what not to do.

“Wow, that’s going to cost me – but it’s fine! I have the money,” he said as he watched me crash the racing car head first into a light pole.

“Cost you? What do you mean?”

It turns out that video games have progressed a bit since my day. Instead of allowing players to crash and demolish digital worlds with impunity, this game makes you pay for repairs out of the money that you win doing various challenges and races. Yay for teaching some basic level of responsibility but boo-hoo for my son who was using his mental arithmetic skills to tally up the damage caused by his mother’s haplessness.

When I had finally finished the race (6th place), he took back the control pad, muttering about how much it was going to cost him to repair his car – “But it’s fine! It’s fine! I’ve got the money!” he backtracked – not very convincingly.

I re-opened my laptop and settled back into my nook on the sofa. But then my son joined me, curling up next to me and resting his head on my shoulder in a rare show of physical affection. He didn’t need to say it, but I sense that he appreciated me taking a bit of time to bond and be scolded over one of his favourite video games. Even if it did cost him 2,300,000 Bucks.

*

Having children was never a given for me. I didn’t have anything against them, in fact I really liked being around my younger cousins and the kids at church and all of that, but me as a mother wasn’t a sure bet.

The first tense conversation we ever had as a married couple was after I casually mentioned that I wasn’t convinced that I wanted kids at all. In that split second, I saw his whole life flash before his eyes. Definitely a conversation to have before you’re legally bound to each other, but what did I know? I was 23.

Thankfully, by the time I actually got pregnant, I was ready and happy to have children – even if the second pregnancy was a complete surprise. And when I emerged from newborn hell, I started to really enjoy raising kids who were full of desires and opinions and acted like real people.

I joke with friends about how we’re essentially our kids’ personal assistants, coordinating their social lives, pockets full of snacks and water bottles always on hand to keep our little bosses hydrated, but generally, I don’t mind it at all. Seeing them progress at swimming and excel at football gives me a big serotonin boost, even if the swimming lessons start at 8.30 in the morning and I’m sat outside on a cold winter evening for two hours wrapped in layers and sipping from a Thermos flask.

The problems I have with my life is that I love everything about it, but don’t love when they are happening all at once. I love being an author, I love being an editor, and I love being a mum, but when I’m trying to do work, while also entertaining my children who are on school break and knowing that I have a writing deadline looming, things get a bit unbearable.

‘Was it worth it? Would you do it again? Aren’t you tired of always making amends?’

*

“But where do you see the pictures you’ve taken?” My son asked, turning the Nikon F50 around in his hand.

“This is a film camera,” I began and explained the process of loading, taking and developing film.

“Do you want to have a go?”

“Yeah!” he said excitedly and lined the viewfinder up with his eye, feeling around with his finger for the trigger.

“Like this?”

“Exactly like that, you’re a natural.”

He took a picture or two before passing the camera on to his brother who took what turned out to be the final shot before the camera began to auto-rewind the spool of film.

I feel like 90% of my day is explaining how the world works to my children. My son keeps asking me about when I’ll finish writing my third book and what the cover is going to be.

“Don’t you design the cover?”

“No, I don’t, the publisher does.”

“But you could design the book cover if you wanted?”

“I mean, yes, I can design book covers and I’ve done it before, but it’s better that someone else does it. Anyway, do you want to see the photos I took in the park?”

“Yeah!” They both chorused with more enthusiasm than I was expecting and I loaded up Lightroom on my laptop and we clicked through the 20 images I’d chosen as the best of the day.

They weren’t gallery-worthy, but would definitely be fun to look back on in their teenage years. Perhaps album cover-worthy if any of them decide to become a music artist, which isn’t impossible with all the freestyle rapping and table drumming that happens in my house at any given point of the day.

“That one’s really cool!” My 9-year-old said, pointing at the final picture of his brother leaping through the brush swiping at a holly bush with a stick (he was tired and wanted to go home).

“It is, isn’t it? Did you like having your pictures taken?”

“Yeah!” They both chorused again.

Well, that’s new.

*

There have been a number of times when people express surprise that I have kids. Most recently, I was listening to a bunch of mothers exchanging stories and laughs about their children and toddlers.

“Jeni’s great at giving parenting advice though,” a friend said, pulling me into the circle of their conversation.

“Oh, you have kids? How many? How old?” one of the other mums asked, probably surprised that I had sat through their conversation without contributing anything.

“Yeah, two boys, six and nine.”

“Oh, boys! And you’re further ahead than I am, what advice would you give to help me prepare?” But my mind was completely blank.

I couldn’t think of a single useful thing to say, because my brain was taking full advantage of not having to be in ‘mum mode’.

Another friend at church once joked that I don’t look like a ‘boy mum’, I didn’t even look like I had kids.

“Because they’re not around right now!” I laughed, knowing that in a few short moments they would come bounding through the double doors that lead to Sunday school and my brain would split into two, my antenna for danger and risk would unfurl and start beeping, and I’d start talking in short snappy sentences designed to hold the attention of two children under ten years old.

*

‘Was it worth it? Would you do it again? Aren’t you–’

Life is a long game. You don’t know how the cards you’re holding now will change and play out.

The very first thing I ever wanted to be was an author. Then I wanted to work in media, before the short-lived delusion of being a graphic designer. Finally, I settled on being a photographer before sacrificing that on the altar of motherhood and martyrdom.

But out of that came a change in direction that turned out to be the ‘dream job I never knew I wanted’ and becoming the author my six year old self dreamt of. Oh yeah, and I do work “in media”, even though I couldn’t have imagined how apocalyptic the media landscape in 2025 would be, and it would be an absolute lie to say that my graphic design education hasn’t been extremely useful over the years.

Younger me felt like she was always racing against the clock to prove herself, to textile teachers and other doubting Thomases. Barrelling through the misgivings of others felt like a superpower, but sometimes you actually do need to stop, take a breath, double back and maybe redirect for a while.

For too long, I saw my own redirection after childbirth as a failure of grit and determination – “I could have just tried a bit more… I could have found someone to watch him and done that shoot… I could have… could have… could have…” And maybe I could have, but then I wouldn’t be here and who knows if anywhere else would provide me with the… what? When I’m taking this hypothetical ‘shoulda woulda coulda’ journey, what else is it exactly that I am looking for?

‘Was it worth it? Would you do it again?’

I’m always asking others what advice they would give their younger selves but never know what I’d tell my young self until now: “You’ve got so much more time than you think you have. You can’t be everything at once, but there’s always enough time to circle back.”

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This month’s newsletter was actually inspired by a podcast interview I did with Stella Oni for Creatives Talking Tech. We spoke about AI, technology, creative processes and, for the first time really, I broke down my career journey from college until now. Watch our conversation on YouTube.

If you’ve enjoyed reading a bit more about my kids, I wrote about how different their relationship is with race for Black Ballad. You should read it.