What's the Deal with Birth Photography?

Portrait.

Wedding.

Graduation.

Senior.

Event.

Maternity.

Couples.

Birth.

Newborn.

Family.

Photography as a service has changed and become new time and time again. When people hear that my profession is Birth Photographer, inevitably one of the first questions will be ‘why?’

Why Births? Why would anyone want pictures of that? Isn’t there nudity? Aren’t there gory things you see? Unsavory things? Why would you want to photograph a baby coming out of a woman’s vagina? Or out of her stomach in an OR? How can you be in the room with a stranger when they labor? How can a couple be comfortable with a complete stranger in the room while they go through arguably the most vulnerable time of their life (aside from the fact that there are strangers in virtually every birth story, but that’s a blog post for a different time…)? And having that stranger TAKE PICTURES no less?!

I understand those questions. Really, I do. There is a long history of stigma surrounding pregnancy, birth, and postpartum (anyone who has seen any type of movie that depicts births before the 1970’s knows that it has largely been viewed as an ‘unmentionable’ event). This stigma is definitely perpetuated by entertainment media even now (particularly in how births and the postpartum period are portrayed). Personal fear, uncertainty surrounding birth, worry about having a stranger in the room, feeling vulnerable about having pictures taken, all those are legitimate reasons to hesitate when it comes to having the birth of a child photographed.

More often though, the reason people decide not to have their birth captured isn’t in the list above, it’s because they don’t want to pay for it. It feels unnecessary. An extravagant expense that is essentially a trumped-up lifestyle vacation session, to be valued at no more than a couple hundred dollars.

Outside of the multiple reasons Birth Photography must be valued on a monetarily higher level (ambiguous dates and times causing loss of all other session opportunities for the photographer, as well as being on call 24/7 being a large part of that), I would propose that the total value of birth photography far outstrips just the monetary value.

I invite you to imagine with me for a moment.

There is this person. You’ve waited a long time to find them, and finally, one day, you realized that it’s happened. The person you’ve waited for, thought about, hoped for, has finally entered your life. That giddy, butterfly feeling sits lightly in your stomach. You feel seen. Cared for. Appreciated. Needed. Your relationship moves forward and you realized that not only are you cared for, you are loved. And you begin to love in return. You feel ownership, a sense of ‘you are mine and I am yours’. You feel safe in that depth of knowing. Things progress and your relationship comes to a new beginning. You suddenly realize that you want nothing more than to spend the rest of your life getting to know, learning to love, and be loved by this person. And you know without a shadow of a doubt, they feel the same.

The day comes to fully give yourself to your new position. The butterflies turn to slight nausea. Is this right? This lifelong commitment starts to feel heavy. Daunting. Too big. You begin to panic, you want to back out. But everyone is there. Everyone is waiting. Everyone knows. You’ve talked about your relationship for months, dreamed out loud to your friends and family until they were sick of hearing your voice. You can’t back out now. You know you want this, and you know you’re strong enough to take the step.

So you take a deep breath, and surrender.

A sudden wave of relief rolls over you. An intense, new love you’ve never felt. A protectiveness. A feeling of power, of surrender, of fear, and of certainty.

Then you hear it- the wavering, watery cry piercing through the fog of last several hours. You see the tiny face, the tiny fingers and toes, feel the weight you carried inside for so long now resting in your arms and you know now what you hadn’t known before: this has been and is the most impactful moment of your life.

Having a baby is perhaps the most profound change that a person can undergo outside of spiritual renewal. It’s intimate, it’s raw, and it’s soul-deep. It changes you all in an instant. It’s not only a birth of a child, but of a mother. Of a father. Of a protector. A care-taker. A forever-changed person.

I offer Birth Photography because taking photos during labor and delivery offers a glimpse into a miracle. It’s capturing a visit from God, the first breath of life. Those miracle moments are often lost in the fog of concentration, focus, and pain. As the years go by the details fade and the only the brightest or darkest memories stand.

Birth photography captures the moments of surrender. The feeling of wonder and disbelief. The anchoring. The first meeting of forever loves. It covers the pain and darkness by revealing the wonder and supernatural.

It’s the breathtaking ability to capture a love story as it culminates.

Personally, I can’t imagine a more worthy moment to photograph, or a more valuable form of art to offer as a service. It requires bravery from both giver and receiver in order to obtain. It requires a measure of vulnerability, of opening. It feels like a big step to invite an artist into that moment, however, I invite you to see the bigger picture. To look 5, 10, 25 years down the road: the life that entered all in an instant grows, blossoms, then leaves. And those memories, more precious even then when they were created, have faded with time. They’ve lost their color, their power, their potency.

The value is there, in those quiet days after the little life you once held inside and in your arms has grown and gone. It’s in the memories, robust and full color, emotions deep and fresh, sitting on pages in front of you. That’s the value.

The memory.

The emotion.

The story.

Unchanged by time.

That’s why Birth Photography is priceless.