I Document The Raw Beauty Of Birth To Challenge People’s Perceptions
Me and my family explore a world’s worth of pregnancy, and motherhood; in hopes of positively challenging social and cultural norms of birth.
I am a professional labour support person ( Doula ) and Birth Photographer living on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. Besides my regular intake of clients, I most recently attained a distinguished ‘Honorable Mention’ at the Annual Image of the Year competition with The International Association of Birth Photographers. In July, I am embarking on a global adventure, collecting stories and images for a book I’m creating.
Women want more out of their individual experiences. They are hungry for positive change in birth culture. This is my opportunity to create a book that not only challenges social and cultural norms of birth in the modern world; but leaves it’s reader feeling empowered, educated, and enthusiastic. Three components that we know are necessary in the pursuit of better outcomes and better experiences; for women AND their families.
For 6 months, I am planning to travel alongside my husband and 2 children. Together, we will explore pregnancy, birth, and parenting; as practiced among different cultures. Visiting people and professionals who share my passion, photographing births of varying degrees, exploring tradition admonished in Western culture, highlighting areas that need change, praising those who do amazing work, and enjoying intimate conversations with mothers who share my vision – all the while documenting every inch of the experience and sharing via various media platforms.
I aim to create a body of work that inspires women and men to feel positively about birth. ‘Birth in a Big World’ (Pending title) is the perfect marriage between art and activism. A book that is deliciously gorgeous, and mega inspiring.
In order to finance travel and production of the book, I launched a crowdfunding via IndieGogo. Together, WE can change the face of birth!
More info: angelagallo.com | Facebook | Indiegogo
This photo got an ‘Honorable Mention’ at the Annual Birth Photography Competition
That’s me and my two lovely children
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Share on FacebookThe small white rectangle covering a nipple is one of the most depressing things I have seen this week. In what world do we live if we need to censor this.
there are other nipples showing, maybe the woman in the pic wanted it covered...
Load More Replies...To say these pictures are literally showing arses, blood, tissues and vaginas - did you really have to put a box over a woman's nipples? Hypocritic priorities much?
Whaaat? Children are not brought by a stork or grown in cabbage fields?! BPanda, these Photoshop captures are science fiction, aint them? :)
I've never SEEN anyone giving birth at all. ^_- But yeah, definitely not what we're expecting after the classic cinematic positions.
Load More Replies...I used to think BoredPanda was an opened minded community. I realise that I was wrong. Judgemental about birth and even breat feeding, two of the most natural things in the world. What an artificial and superficial culture we live in right now, where anything natural must be shunted and labelled as "attention seeking". Pfff.
s**t is natural too so are tumours and all sorts of horrid things
Load More Replies...Placenta. You actually birth that part after. I didn't even think to warn my husband about it. (My 2nd child, his 1st) Later that night he had the most troubled look on his face. I say what's wrong? He looks up and says only one word while looking utterly traumatized: placenta. It still cracks me up remembering it.
Load More Replies...ugh how is this improving anything how about pictures of menstrual clots to help us improve our perceptions of periods or fistulas where the a**s and vagina become one with feces leaking out of the vagina as happens to many women, and in poor countries many can't afford to fix them childbirth, the second leading cause of women's death worldwide
God's an amazing artist heh just glad that we are who we are. Life is art with others who inspire each other. Mr. and Mrs. Gallo you both hold beautiful kids. Amazing pictures as well!!!
I thought childbirth ALREADY IS a huge deal in any culture, does it need to be advertised? How does watching pictures "empower" us?
Because it remains taboo to see naked, and real, bodies... celebrate this, for goodness sake! It is awesome!
Load More Replies...Um. They aren't naked for attention. Hot flashes are nuts during labor. A large majority of women who birth naturally wind up naked or mostly naked. That's not even counting the fact that you're bound to ruin anything you wear.
Load More Replies...Just because we're talking about beauty, doesn't mean having any artistic tendency makes you any more of an expert or gives your voice any more weight. A new human has been formed inside another, and will become a whole person just like you did - you were that grey, shrivelled larva at some point. The point of beauty in this context is to focus on the organic experience, which can be fantastically unique, instead of the cold, clinical approach we often see in media and the image that often lives in the mind of people who don't go through that process. My sister loved her experience with giving birth enough that she was looking forward to doing it again despite the pain and discomfort. I would never go through it for all the money in the world, and yet I can see the beauty in it. As for women choosing to go through it - same as everything else: the benefits outweigh the negative sides for them. You not seeing the good parts changes nothing in their very existence.
Load More Replies...The small white rectangle covering a nipple is one of the most depressing things I have seen this week. In what world do we live if we need to censor this.
there are other nipples showing, maybe the woman in the pic wanted it covered...
Load More Replies...To say these pictures are literally showing arses, blood, tissues and vaginas - did you really have to put a box over a woman's nipples? Hypocritic priorities much?
Whaaat? Children are not brought by a stork or grown in cabbage fields?! BPanda, these Photoshop captures are science fiction, aint them? :)
I've never SEEN anyone giving birth at all. ^_- But yeah, definitely not what we're expecting after the classic cinematic positions.
Load More Replies...I used to think BoredPanda was an opened minded community. I realise that I was wrong. Judgemental about birth and even breat feeding, two of the most natural things in the world. What an artificial and superficial culture we live in right now, where anything natural must be shunted and labelled as "attention seeking". Pfff.
s**t is natural too so are tumours and all sorts of horrid things
Load More Replies...Placenta. You actually birth that part after. I didn't even think to warn my husband about it. (My 2nd child, his 1st) Later that night he had the most troubled look on his face. I say what's wrong? He looks up and says only one word while looking utterly traumatized: placenta. It still cracks me up remembering it.
Load More Replies...ugh how is this improving anything how about pictures of menstrual clots to help us improve our perceptions of periods or fistulas where the a**s and vagina become one with feces leaking out of the vagina as happens to many women, and in poor countries many can't afford to fix them childbirth, the second leading cause of women's death worldwide
God's an amazing artist heh just glad that we are who we are. Life is art with others who inspire each other. Mr. and Mrs. Gallo you both hold beautiful kids. Amazing pictures as well!!!
I thought childbirth ALREADY IS a huge deal in any culture, does it need to be advertised? How does watching pictures "empower" us?
Because it remains taboo to see naked, and real, bodies... celebrate this, for goodness sake! It is awesome!
Load More Replies...Um. They aren't naked for attention. Hot flashes are nuts during labor. A large majority of women who birth naturally wind up naked or mostly naked. That's not even counting the fact that you're bound to ruin anything you wear.
Load More Replies...Just because we're talking about beauty, doesn't mean having any artistic tendency makes you any more of an expert or gives your voice any more weight. A new human has been formed inside another, and will become a whole person just like you did - you were that grey, shrivelled larva at some point. The point of beauty in this context is to focus on the organic experience, which can be fantastically unique, instead of the cold, clinical approach we often see in media and the image that often lives in the mind of people who don't go through that process. My sister loved her experience with giving birth enough that she was looking forward to doing it again despite the pain and discomfort. I would never go through it for all the money in the world, and yet I can see the beauty in it. As for women choosing to go through it - same as everything else: the benefits outweigh the negative sides for them. You not seeing the good parts changes nothing in their very existence.
Load More Replies...
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