I am very excited. Metro Newspaper is featuring my baby bump in tomorrow’s newspaper!
The journalist emailed me a few days ago asking if I would be open to discussing my intention for taking maternity photos (like the one featured above). She follows me on instagram and with all of the recent chatter about Beyonce and Ciara’s maternity photos, she wondered what all of the rage is about getting almost naked in front of the camera.
I never, ever, ever thought I would be comfortable doing a shoot of my own when I got pregnant, but it’s the most beautiful experience to grow a human being inside of you and I don’t plan on getting pregnant that many times in my life, so I figured it’s a must to capture while the baby was in my belly!
I’m also all about self-love, self-acceptance and female empowerment (I even created a self-love jewelry line), so I figured why not capture the beauty of a growing belly?
It wasn’t that easy to get pregnant, so when I did and my body started to change, I was grateful for it all – the weird “bloated” tummy stage, terrible nausea, crazy aversions to healthy food (that I had for three straight months) and the exhaustion that prevented me from working out.
I sent all the love I could to my uterus, my growing belly, body… and baby.
I not only accepted the changes, I embraced them. By 37 weeks, I was still feeling great. The only regret I would’ve had, was not to capture it all. So, I reached out to Robert Fitch Photography.
See my post here with the rest of my maternity photos!
And check out the article here in Metro.
This is what the article in Metro said:
“Burke, who photographs in all of the above styles, says for many of her clients, the shoots help them overcome body image issues.
“When we’re pregnant, oftentimes we are critical and cynical, ‘Oh, I’ve gotten so fat here, oh my body is changing there,’” says Burke, who at the time of this interview was eight months pregnant herself. “It’s a time to stop and say, ‘Hold on, your body is making a human. This is a really beautiful experience and let’s celebrate it.’”
That’s certainly what motivated Arielle Haspel. The 33-year-old founder of Be Well with Arielle says she decided to do a maternity shoot to both celebrate and remember her pregnancy. “It wasn’t easy for me to get pregnant, so when I did, I was grateful for it all. The morning sickness, my growing belly and my changing body,” she says.
After a friend posted a photo of her shoot with Manhattan-based photographer Rob Fitch, Haspel knew she wanted to have the same experience. Once she hit 37 weeks, she booked a session. “If I didn’t capture the beauty of the pregnancy, I knew I would regret it,” she says.
Fitch, who describes his aesthetic as “artistic silhouette maternity photography,” uses studio lighting to create a classic look. This results in angelic, understated shots that highlight the femininity of the pregnant form while preserving a hint of modesty.
Read the full article here or pick it up on newsstands tomorrow!
Be you. Be you. Be you.
xo
be well,
arielle
