Consider a breastfeeding photoshoot

When I was a new mom living and working in my tiny basement suite in Vancouver, a breastfeeding photoshoot was the last thing on my mind. But if there’s one thing parenthood and being a doula has taught me, it’s the importance of noticing and honouring magic. Feeding babies is some kind of magic I still can’t wrap my head around.

Here is a story from a client who I had the pleasure of capturing their breastfeeding journey with their third child.


“I fed my first baby at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver, with a midwife, my mom, and my husband watching keenly as he and I worked it out. It felt like a mysterious and overwhelming kind of magic happening between our two bodies. I was doing this, but somehow as an enamoured bystander. In that moment and all the minutes and hours that followed, I continued to be changed by this miraculous ritual.
The nights dragging into days, painfully fleeting in their monotony, made me into a different kind of woman. I so wish I had photos that showed how beautiful I was in my exhausted and ragged body, the last time she learned that many new skills while being a vessel of magic.

We moved our mattress into our living room, taking up approximately 25% of our entire house with our bassinet, garbage bins and various snacks. Sustained by Chicago Mix and The Mindy Project, we were in our own little universe, learning and basking in bliss, while also lamenting the slog of 24 hour days. The most visceral memory I have is dreading night time and the relief morning bird songs brought. That learning phase felt so long, and the curve was so steep. The stark loneliness of night time felt like it would eat me up. I barely remember it, but I remember being so surprised and proud when we made it through.

These days, that emotional physical pain has been replaced with the pain of weaning my last baby. I remember reading out loud in a rocking chair while he fed. Now he reads me books while his siblings create a queue in my lap. It’s magic.

Seven years into parenthood and I long for a photo I can lift up and say “Look! Look where we’ve been! Look who we were! Isn’t it incredible, this magic.” What I wouldn’t do to find my 28 year old self and tell her that this bewildering experience would be her first experience of her incredible power and powerlessness. It deserved to be captured.

I’d grab her a coffee and drive her and her baby to Roberta’s studio and gently coax her into just being there, allowing that moment to be honoured in the way it so deserved to be with a breastfeeding photoshoot. There is something about feeding your baby that changes you every time. Documenting those moments is a gift to the current you, and the you that is still in formation, being moulded by the rapids of this good and hard work.” -Dannielle

Breastfeeding photoshoot

Contact me to book me for your breastfeeding photoshoot or to ask me more questions about my photography.