Photographer who took images of women before and after giving birth reveals what inspired project
It isn’t often that the spotlight on new mothers is created with so much wonder, but Vaida Markeviciute-Razmislavice's Becoming Mother project is one that’ll stay with you.
The photographer, who is a mother herself, used 33 woman as her muses, and snapped images of each person prior to and post baby – and the results are beautiful.
While we’ve had people taking images of women throughout history, be it a man who captured people as they started drinking alcohol, or one who snapped women pre and post orgasm, this one shone a light on a new focus.
Motherhood and the changes you can see just by looking at their faces is a different project from many that have come before and the Lithuanian photographer revealed just how she came up with it.
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The project, which took place in 2019 to showcase the difference becoming a parent makes beyond physical differences, revealed a ‘transformation.’
She told My Modern Met at the time that there were only three things to tick off the list for candidates who wanted to take part.
She said: “One, to be pregnant with the first-born; two, to participate in the second photoshoot within the first 3 months after the baby (or babies) were born; and three, allow unlimited publication of the two portraits.”
Speaking with the outlet, Markeviciute-Razmislavice explained she didn’t want to continue the narrative that being a mother was an ‘obstacle’ to overcome.
Instead, she said she wanted to show just how it can ‘free you’ from preconceived assumptions of the lifestyle.
She said: “Throughout my adult life, I have met many women who saw motherhood as an obstacle to reaching something ‘greater,’ as if it stopped them from something. However, I have also met living evidence that it is up to you only, how your life will change.”
“Motherhood can become a jail,” she explained, adding: “But it also can free you from old concepts and attitudes that no longer serve you by transforming you into this wise woman who knows and sees more than ever before.”
The mother went on to share how she has both ‘noticed (and witnessed) many times’ how the ‘gaze of a woman changes when she becomes a mother.’
And by ‘gaze’ she means the look in her eyes.
If you look at her before and after images, you might see how the ‘after’ pictures show brighter eyes, and what seems like a softer expression.
“This only confirms what tremendous transformation motherhood is,” the photographer said.
“In fact, I have noticed that our gaze changes after any strong experience throughout our lives. I found it very interesting to explore motherhood in this light,” she concluded.
She revealed that the changes were ‘tangible’.
She told the outlet that there were ‘so many different emotions’ flowing in the portraits after they had given birth.
“There was something intangible, very subtle and at the same time, deep, and evident. It is indeed rather hard for me to describe the changes the whole team witnessed,” she said.
“Some people see them, some don’t. It is vaguely possible to describe in detail the invisible behind the Becoming Mother portraits.”
Topics: Parenting
Britt Jones