The Art of Mother And Child

"Breastfeeding is an unsentimental metaphor for how love works, in a way. You don’t decide how much and how deeply to love – you respond to the beloved, and give with joy exactly as much as they want." ~Marni Jackson

Where to start...hmm. First of all about 2 or 3 months a go I came to the point where I felt like I needed to decide where my passion and focus lay with my photography. I honestly love photographing almost anything (and will continue to do so as time allows) but I felt my heart and passion really lay with motherhood and children as well as families. I wanted to include in my focus things I hadn't before such as birth photography and sessions such as the following, dedicated to the beautiful life giving ritual that so many mothers have done from the beginning of time (including for those of faith a little babe born in a manger a couple thousand years a go): breastfeeding. How could I not include this if I was going to focus in this area? And truly having 3 children of my own who I have nursed to varying degrees I find it beautiful and just so special that I really have no words for it, so capturing it on camera seems totally natural to me.

I was able to photograph a beautiful fellow photographer Cristi of Cristi Kearn Photography and her sweet baby boys. We went to my favorite spot in Balboa Park on a beautiful San Diego 'winter' day a few weeks a go. I intentionally asked her youngest who she would be nursing be nude as I just thought it was a beautiful and intimate expression of the mother/child bond, that skin to skin contact. Little did I know that just as I was getting ready to write this blog post, Facebook would explode with a firestorm over just these types of photos and what it means to us artists/photographers.

Also over the last few months I have found and grown with an online community of fellow artists/photographers and come to consider some of these ladies friends even though we have (yet) to meet. When I set out to do this shoot I was inspired by 2 lovely ladies, Laura  of Laura Lynn Photography and Candice of Blissful Maven Photography, whom Laura photographed nursing her beautiful daughter. Unfortunately Candice has been at the center of some pretty mean and targeted bullying on her Facebook page because she finds the beauty and art and her passion in the same areas I do. Also a mother she finds art all around her and if that so happens to be in her little ones running around without clothes or playing in the bath etc....well that's where it is. I'm also now finding out a few other photographers have also been blocked because they were reported too. So eventually I may find myself there too.

Now anyone who is a mother can relate to this. How many of us mothers post that cute bath picture, or our sons running around shirtless? THIS is the type of stuff we're talking about that she has been banned for from both her personal and business pages on Facebook because of one person. If we're being honest as well, how many worse things have we seen not banned?! Honestly the photos that got banned are no worse than what you will see below in this session. To me this session is art, the art of mother and child, the art of childhood, the art of life. I hope you too will see the beauty in it and join me in supporting Candice and other artists like her. (Here's a link to her blog on the subject from a few days a go: http://www.blissfulmavenphotography.com/being-creative-in-a-perverted-world/) .

If you're a mama, or an artist, or both, this is for you. This is for Candice and all of us like her.

Blessings,

Anna

P.S. Oh and yes I will be having some cute naked newborn shots to show from this weekend. ;)

P.P.S. Yes, I get permission before posting any and all photos online. If none given, sorry folks you can't see them. Yes, all the photos that I'm aware of that Candice got banned for were of her own children, don't most if not all of us mama's post these types of pictures?