Celebrating Motherhood: The Body Beautiful

Tell us a little bit about yourself, where are you from, where do you live and why you became a photographer? I am originally from Venezuela, my mom and dad are architects and I was raised in the midst of museum visits, theater outings and always loving the graphic arts. It was no surprise that I went to school to become a graphic designer after all. I then came to California in 2001 and kept working as a graphic designer while getting married and starting a family with an american so now we have a multicultural family. Photography is one of the arts I loved in school and after having kids my love for it grew and I started learning even more. I now consider myself a graphic designer and a photographer too.

Has your perspective and point-of-view changed since becoming a Mom? And if so, how? Yes! Very much. I learned to look more, to be more aware of our surroundings, I started by taking lots of photos of my kids but I soon started to look at everything else as a subject for a photo. The world becomes so interesting and after being close to the floor or running around behind a moving kiddo or figuring out how to bribe the subjects, everything is doable!

What do you find most rewarding about motherhood? Everything, it’s something hard to explain, I wish everybody could experience being a mother. The unconditional love that one constantly gives and receives is amazing.

What do you find the most challenging or surprising? One of the most challenging things is to keep being able to dedicate time to myself, it’s always hard. One surprising thing is that even though it is super hard to keep calm and have patience to be understanding when the kids misbehave, at the end I end up solving the problems one way or another and I feel proud; I’m pretty sure all of us mothers have strong powers inside.

How do you store/organize/display/showcase your photographs? I store them in the computer by date (with the help of Adobe Lightroom) and I definitely need to display and print more of them. I have some in albums and books and some are even framed but I haven’t done it recently.

Any recommendations for moms trying to capture those beautiful moments? To bring the camera everywhere! And it doesn’t have to be a big camera, a good camera phone will do. But also to be very aware of the light and maybe learn a little bit because knowing where to stand the best makes a difference in a photo. Oh and shoot a lot, practice makes master!

Any situation (good or bad) where you wish you had your camera? At an excursion in Dominican Republic where we were going into some waterfalls but we had to walk a lot to get there, they recommended we leave the cameras in the car and so I did. I felt almost naked leaving it there and during the whole walk I missed so many good photo opportunities!

What makes you feel beautiful as a mother? Knowing that two little ones depend on me to protect them and to guide them through life gives me so much comfort and strength. Every day I prepare to open up their world a little bit more which gives me confidence and that confidence makes me feel beautiful.

What advice can you give other mothers who might not feel beautiful in their bodies? To look within them, to find their true beauty inside. It doesn’t matter what shape is a mother’s body but a mother has strength, experience and a love which can show through and reveal beauty.

Bonus Question: If you had to do it all over again would you change anything and why? Even though that is not something I could control, if I could, I would change the timing and start becoming a mother earlier, I would have loved to had more than two kids!

Do you want to chime in? What do you think makes a mother’s body beautiful?