For the past five years, portrait photographer Jenny Lewis of Hackney, London, has been finding and photographing new mothers with their newborn babies within 24 hours after childbirth.
She says her goal is to “capture the extraordinary bonding, warmth, and strength between mother and infant” as a natural mothering instinct kicks in. “I find the collection of images defiant and beautiful, challenging the expected vision of those first twenty-four hours, a pure celebration of what it means to be a mother,” she states.
She wants to show the world that childbirth is a positive experience and not one that should be feared. She has photographed over 150 mothers so far for the project, choosing subjects from her area without consideration of looks, age, race, or class.
Each of the mothers was photographed in her own environment, adding an additional layer of personalization to the portrait. Lewis has also been gathering quotes and insights from the mothers featured in the project on what it’s like becoming a new mother.
40 portraits and numerous quotes were recently compiled into a new book published by Hoxton Mini Press, titled “One Day Young.” It can be purchased for £12.95 from the Hoxton website.
Image credits: One Day Young by Jenny Lewis is published by Hoxton Mini Press, £12.95 available from www.hoxtonminipress.com. The photos in this article were used with permission.
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.