Morgan Maher’s intimate portraits of Girls in Bed
Featuring Rachel Sennott, Chase Sui-Wonders and Enya Umanzor, the photographer's new book is a playful exploration of femininity and vulnerability.
13 PHOTOS
1. Morgan Maher’s bedroom is a place where girls share their deepest, darkest secrets. It’s where they confess their latest crush or the last time they cried, where they play dress up or cuddle in her crumpled white sheets. As if at a slumber party, Morgan joins them, capturing all of these intimate moments on film. Though she started taking these photographs five years ago in her tiny New York apartment, it was only last summer that she began to consider them a complete body of work. “I printed them and laid them all out because I was like, ‘Fuck, am I just taking the same picture over and over again?’ she explained over the phone. “Then I realized it needed to be a book.” And so, Girls in Bed was born.
Morgan’s girls pose against the backdrop of a singular white wall, the images taking on a soft, saccharine quality. The book — her very first, published by Friend Editions — is a playful exploration of girlhood, owning one’s femininity, and reclaiming agency in the most vulnerable of places, the bedroom. It also unintentionally acts as a who’s who of young stars, highlighting her friends who are rising actresses — Rachel Sennott, Chase Sui-Wonders, and Courtney Eaton — musicians — Sabrina Fuentes and Harmony Tividad – and cool girls like Enya Umanzor and Gabrielle Richardson. Morgan captures her muses centerfold style: wearing lace underwear, printed jammies, or knee-high socks with satin bows; taking a page from Morgan’s own signature, coquettish style.
2. “The photograph is obviously the final product, but what really brings me joy, and part of the art, is sculpting with intimacy, that intimacy you experience when two girls are sitting in bed sharing their secrets,” the 27-year-old photographer says. “Based on personal experiences, I didn’t always feel safe in the bedroom, and that conversation would happen with some of the girls that I was photographing as well, which is truly heartbreaking… I feel safe in a bedroom again, and my level of honesty and openness to just create something that was very special for women and girls, that created a safe space.”
There’s a rawness to the images that reflects the collaborative nature of Morgan’s work. She saw each shoot as a casual hangout, and when girls would ask what they should wear, she gave them as little instruction as possible. “I would never say anything specific,” she remembers. “Like what do you feel your best in, and what do you feel like? Are you feeling flirty? Are you feeling cozy? Are you feeling sleepy?” Though, of course, there was no wrong answer to Morgan’s prompts. “She sees the best in you and convinces you to see it too,” her friend Talulah Brown wrote in the book’s introduction.
3. Having grown up outside of Baltimore, Maryland, Morgan first started taking photographs when she was in middle school. In order to “not be chaotic and freak out” about what to wear each day, she took pictures of all her favorite outfits — “Limited Too… Gap core” – and taped them to the wall of her closet to ease her decision-making process. This evolved into playing dress up with friends after school and taking pictures of their looks just for fun. “I always just loved girl world,” she says, adding that she felt more like a tomboy at the time. “[Femininity] wasn't really something that I totally felt confident in embracing.”
Later, Morgan went on to study at Savannah College of Art and Design, and after graduating she moved to New York to pursue photography in-house at Marc Jacobs in 2016. Once she was living on her own in the city — though she’s recently traded coasts for Los Angeles — all of her initial interests came rushing back and then some. “I feel like my entire life I was into all things teenage girl, purity, girlhood, all of that, and when I finally had my own apartment is when I realized that I had the freedom to play and cry and scream and just experience the spectrum of emotions that were existing inside of me,” she explained. “So, I started taking photos because the only place that I really felt safe was in my apartment, in my bedroom.”
Though Morgan’s swapped her white sheets for hot pink cheetah print, she’s created an entire aesthetic world that extends far beyond her four bedroom walls. Here, we’ve invited some of the Girls in Bed to ask the photographer questions about her upbringing, internet habits, and heroes.
4. Rachel Sennott
What was the first thing you hid from your parents?
Growing up I was only allowed to watch PG movies and shows, I saw Flavor of Love at a friend's house when I was 12 or 13. I would sneak it when my parents went to sleep or at sleepovers; it was my little secret. Until I got caught at a friend's house and my mom came to pick me up I was mortified!
5. Jeannie Sui-Wonders
Currently filled with questions about your love life, but will keep it professional! What was your online life like in middle and high school? And does it inform your creative process now?
When I was in middle school I had a secret AIM account that I would log out of before my parents found it. I never had a MySpace, so I would design fake profiles in Microsoft Word. Then I graduated to Tumblr, where I had my first experience with a girly pen pal from Wisconsin. It was on Tumblr where I shared my photos, poems, and diary entries outside of my bedroom for the first time.
5. Gabrielle Richardson
For as long as I’ve known you, beds have been a recurring theme in your work — what has made them a sacred space for you?
Keywords: Morgan Maher | Intimate portraits | Girls in Bed | Vulnerability | Femininity | Playful exploration | Photographs