A beautiful Mother.
I first met Becky and her gorgeous wee family when I photographed Ruby when she was around 6 weeks old. I loved their session - and I loved even more that Becky straight away recognised the value of professional photos and ordered a really big canvas for her wall. This is just one of the photos from Ruby's session that I love...
Anyway, fast forward a few months and Becky answered a model call I ran on my
Facebook page looking for some new mums to embrace their postpartum bodies and to help spread a message about positive body image and their experiences of having a "baby body" (let it be said - baby body can be ANY kind of body following having a baby!!)
I jumped at the chance to photograph these two beauties again, and so we set a date. I think Becky was slightly nervous, as were most mums who had agreed to take part in this project, thought Becky was one of the first. After all, I was asking them to stand there almost naked in their underwear in front of my camera! A MASSIVE ASK, lets just get that out there.
Actually lets just digress for a second... these women are my heroes. To do this, to put yourself out there like this, it's no small gesture. I mean to our babies and children, they are used to seeing
us (near) naked! We take them in the shower with us, we feed them in
our beds, we try to shower and dress ourselves while trying to keep them
alive, and I'm sure they think it's all one big entertaining act
designed entirely for them! So this makes me hopeful that as these
babies grow up, they of course won't be embarrassed by these amazing
photographs like all children possibly would be - instead I hope they'll
be taken back (even if cognitively and subconsciously) to a place of love and nurture.
A place where only the two of them matter and nothing else even comes
into that place of bond and love.
Anyway, on to the photos. I wanted to capture Becky and Ruby primarily as "just" Mum and Daughter. Nothing else in the way, just them and their little ways of going about their everyday love and affection. I get that is kinda hard with a camera shoved in your face! But I think we scratched at the surface of that during the time we had together in the studio.
I must admit, I had the odd panic moment following the shoot - what if Becky HATED the photos? What if she hated me for taking them! We had talked about their being no use of photoshop (I had this idea that I wanted the photos to be REAL - not real as in defining real, but real as in it needed to represent the person exactly as they were in real life). So my lighting was very simple and my "poses" were very natural. But what if them being real and natural meant that she saw herself differently somehow? Hands up if that's happened to you? I know it has to me...!
I needn't have worried, Becky came back to me with "I like them! And surprisingly, I don't want to delete any!" Wow. YAY! I was stoked. And she has said she is more than happy for me to share them on here. Admittedly I have been COMPLETELY useless and the shoot was back in April. I'm JUST getting around to sharing them now!! I think I over thought writing this blog post quite a bit, but I really wanted there to be some context to the photos and to share my thoughts and reasons for doing them in the first place.
If this project (yes, I said project... that means there will be more!) does nothing except help one single woman feel better about her "baby body" then I will be happy.
I feel like I need to add - I have photographed all types of bodies with this project so far. REAL means everything! And yes, that includes Mums that have flat bellies and no stretchmarks 6 weeks after having a baby - that IS real for some people, whether it just happens naturally or if they worked hard for it. Sure, they may be in the minority, but PLEASE don't think that these people don't need to receive positive messages about body image! As women and mothers we ALL need to support each other, no matter if that is through high-fives for achieving goals, hugs for the bad days or just a word in their ear that it's ok, they're doing great. As someone commented today (I'm sorry I can't find the comment to credit the person!) "when a woman has a baby, her body will be first on her mind but often last on her list of priorities". This isn't because she is lazy or unhealthy. It's because SHE HAS A BABY!!!!
Please feel free to comment and share your experiences or a few words on the photos. I didn't think we needed to mention things like PLEASE REMEMBER YOUR MANNERS, but apparently we do after some of the comments I've seen today on my other article (http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/parenting/71113935/hutt-photographer-challenges-societys-views-on-naked-mums) so please keep them positive and remember that it takes a lot of strength to put yourself out there.
Jane x
