Each year the best birth photos from across the globe are honoured for their beauty, magic and ability to capture the emotion of that unparalleled moment when both a baby and mother are born. But last year, the strength of mothers shone even brighter, as they birthed in an incredibly difficult time.
Therefore, Birth Becomes You put on a new spin on its annual Best Birth Photography Competition, instead holding the 2020 Birth Photography Image Celebration. Photographers submitted more than 300 images taken throughout 2020 to a private Facebook group, where more than 3500 birth photographers voted for the images that moved them.
Birth Becomes You co-founder Jennifer Mason explained, “While we still wanted to honour the births documented during this unique period, it was also vitally important that we hold space for those births that weren’t documented/supported because of the pandemic. Instead of having a ‘competition’, we’ve put together a collection of images that are unlike any that we’ve ever seen before. This is a year that none of us will ever forget, and regardless of what our stories were, we all went through this pandemic together.”
Most moving birth images of 2020
From raw and powerful pushing to serene moments of solitude, these are the most moving birth images of 2020. Trigger warning: This series does include an image of miscarriage.
Exhale
via Alexandria Mooney Photography
Reach Down
via Dana Jacobs of Dana Jacobs Photography
A Traditional Cord Burning Ceremony: Honouring Her Ancestors
via Nicole Hamic
Peace Be Still
Miscarriage At 9 Weeks
via Jessica Vink of Vi Photography
Mummy Is Waiting For You
via Ania Wibig
Examining Every Detail
via Lisa Phillips
Feel The Cord
via Dana Jacobs of Dana Jacobs Photography
Surrounded By Love
via Melissa Helmick of The Photographic Storyteller
Relief
via Alexandria Mooney of Alexandria Mooney Photography
Daddy’s Girls
Serenity
via Colby Tulachanh
The Celebration
via Candice Tizzard of Stages Doula and Photography
Enveloped
via Danny Merz Mensch of Geburts Reportage
Sacred Postpartum
via Hanna Hill-Destigter of Hanna Hill Photography
Crossing The Threshold
via Gina Dolski of Gather Birth Cooperative
Releasing The Sacred Tie
via Diana Hinek of Art Shaped Photography
The Prayer
via Elaine Baca of Lane B Photography
In Her Arms
via Isabell Steinert of Isabell Steinert Fotografie
Harmony In Birth
via Ania Wibig
En Caul Between Two Worlds
via Janice Lim Hing
Born During A Pandemic
via Brianna Waltman of Breezy Photography
Exhilarating
The Calm Before The Final Surge
via Lisa Phillips
The First Of Firsts
via Michelle Glenn Photography
Breathe
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