Breaking the stigma: Alex Baker’s project “This is Motherhood” makes mothers feel seen

Everyone says becoming a mother is a joyful, magical experience, a pure blessing. While it undoubtedly is – there are many challenges new moms face, and talking about them is still largely stigmatized.

Alex Baker’s project This is Motherhood is a great example of how one can use photography to speak up about things we don’t talk about, yet they’re so important to address. In her project, she explored the invisibility and judgment that mothers experience, particularly regarding feeding their babies.

The idea

Alex told me that the idea first came to her mind when her son was around two months old. “I was processing all the big changes that I’d gone through in a very rapid period of time,” she explains.

“The birth itself was fairly smooth. However, I wasn’t prepared for the challenges of having a newborn and what that meant. My partner seemed to be continuing his life as normal, meanwhile mine had no resemblance to what existed before. This feeling of mourning an old identity and finding your new one as a mother, I think, affects many women, and oftentimes we are isolated in this journey.”

I’m not a mother myself, but my bestie recently became one. Not to mention that most of my friends already are moms since we’re all deep in our 30s. While I haven’t experienced it in my own skin, each and every close friend has told me about how challenging and lonely motherhood can be, no matter how rewarding it also is.

Since having a baby is a full-time job (with overtime. Non-stop overtime), it wasn’t until Alex’s son turned three that she had the energy to actually do the project. “I had encouragement from a women’s art group that I am part of, with the goal of using one or two of the photos to exhibit in a joint project,” she explains. And so it began.

Doing the project

Alex reached out to the community looking for models for her project. Facebook to the rescue: she put out a call to a local mother’s group. She offered to take conventional portraits of moms and their babies in return for their time.

“The first baby I photographed was just 2 weeks old, and I could tell that the mother was struggling a little with her new role in life. We talked a lot, and the idea came about to record a few questions as well as part of the project. After I looked at the back of the camera in the first couple of photos, I could see how powerful these images were.”

In the first week alone, Alex photographed seven women and each shoot was around 30 minutes long. Alex made sure to make the setting comfortable for moms and babies. She created a small studio space in her house and kept notes of the lighting position, power settings, and camera settings. This way, she achieved consistency, and all the photos matched up perfectly despite being shot on different days.

“I used just one strobe in a medium-sized octabox overhead to create what would be butterfly lighting if the faces were visible,” Alex explains. After taking the photos, she would process them all exactly the same in Photoshop. Although, it’s worth noting that the post-processing was minimal.

In the end, Alex photographed 18 women in total, and their children, of course. The kids were from the age of two weeks up to three years.

The perfect timing

While it seems that waiting three years for this project was a lot, it actually came at the perfect time. “After the first couple of shoots, there was a major news story about how a woman had been forced to breastfeed her baby in the bathroom on a KLM flight,” Alex tells me. “It seemed like the perfect time to release the first few images.”

“While my project was supposed to be about identity, it morphed into being more about women’s journeys of breastfeeding their babies in public and the expectations put on them by society.

I feel lucky living in Spain that the culture here is relatively open minded, and I never had too many problems. However, some of the things the women revealed were eye opening, and really show just how backwards many parts of the world are still in relation to this subject.”

Alex concludes that this project helped her connect with women from all over the world who happened to be living in the same city as she at the time. “I am grateful to them for sharing their trials and joys of motherhood with me.”

In the end, Alex says that, if you’re still having second thoughts, she wholeheartedly recommends you to embark on a personal project. Even more so if it explores something uncomfortable and deeply personal. “In the end, shooting this project was cathartic in a way that nothing else could have been,” she concludes.

It is such a blessing and privilege to hear about other women’s experiences and turn them into works of art that speak volumes. I’ve only been on this side as a friend, and I couldn’t be more honored to have my friends share their thoughts and doubts with me. Motherhood truly is a huge blessing – but it’s also a huge challenge. I am happy that there are women like Alex and her lovely models who are willing to break the stigma and talk about the hardships as much as the pleasures of being a mother.

Enjoy more of Alex’s powerful images below and check out her work on her website and Instagram. I’m happy to have her as my colleague and friend here at DIYP, and you can read her articles here.

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