Exhibition · 2016

I Became a Father

Bálna, Budapest

In my own words

The most personal one. When my own world turned upside down, I did the only thing I know how to do: I picked up a camera and pointed it at other men standing in the same storm.

Black and white, very close, no posing. Just fathers with their children — a hand on a small back, a sleeping weight on a shoulder. Everything the word 'masculinity' fails to say is in those frames. Men are told to be strong and silent; I wanted to photograph what strength actually looks like when nobody is performing it.

Gallery

Works from the exhibition

A newborn rests its head on its father's shoulder, peeking at the camera, with Hungarian text reading 'I became a father'.
A mother tenderly touches noses with her sleeping newborn, cradling the baby's head in her hand.
A father with closed eyes tenderly embraces his sleeping newborn against his chest.
A laughing toddler in a flat cap is held by his smiling father in a garden setting.
A father and his baby lie face to face on a bed, both looking at the camera with curious expressions.
A father gently kisses his newborn's forehead, holding the baby close in soft light.
A father holds his smiling baby up to nuzzle a pacifier held between his own teeth, playfully bonding.
A father and baby touch noses, foreheads nearly meeting in a tender close-up moment.
An older brother hugs a large teddy bear while his baby sibling sits on their father's shoulders.
A father and newborn nearly touch noses, the baby's tiny fist near its mouth, in soft profile lighting.
A smiling toddler girl with a hair clip is held by her father, who plays with her fingers.
A laughing baby is held up close to its smiling mother's face in a joyful embrace.
A bald father cradles his newborn, foreheads almost touching in a quiet, intimate moment.
A father smiles at his baby daughter, who wears a flower-shaped light projected on the wall behind them.
A father in a graphic t-shirt gently holds his newborn against his chest, both looking downward.
A smiling toddler girl with a hair clip is affectionately held close by her bespectacled father.
A mother leans down smiling at her laughing baby, who reaches up with an open-mouthed grin.
A father with a serious expression bottle-feeds his newborn, who lies wrapped in striped fabric.
A bearded father with long hair tenderly kisses his newborn's foot while cradling the baby on a blanket.
A father laughs cheek-to-cheek with his baby, who wears a patterned onesie and clutches his shirt.
A smiling father and his baby, both bare-chested, gaze at each other cheek-to-cheek.
A shirtless father with dreadlocks smiles down at his baby, who reaches up to touch his chest.
A father lifts his laughing baby boy high above him, both faces close together in delighted play.
A father tenderly kisses his laughing baby's cheek, both smiling warmly at each other.
A father in a checkered shirt tenderly holds his newborn daughter, who wears a headband bow.
A shirtless father proudly cradles two newborn twins, one in each arm, smiling at the camera.

© Norbert Bánhalmi / BANHALMI. All rights reserved. Images from the BANHALMI archive, 1999–2026.

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How it connects to the wider work

I Became a Father was presented at Bálna in Budapest in 2016. The black-and-white portraits focus on fathers with their children and the everyday gestures of care between them.

Period of the oeuvre

II2014–2016Human stories and historical memory

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Period of the oeuvre · II

Human stories and historical memory

This exhibition belongs here because of the question behind it, the photographs it brought together and the traces it left in public.

Archive overviewHuman stories and historical memory Press and moving imageI Became a Father Curatorial dossierResearch context