At a time when social media inundates us with highlight reels of seemingly perfect lives, there has never been a greater yearning for authenticity. And I’m not talking about the cliché kind of authenticity that’s been played out in lifestyle photography for years. I’m talking about the kind that truly illuminates what it means to be a real human being in 2024 — the kind of images that intimate motherhood photography produces.

After a seven-year career as a family photographer in the Seattle area, I found myself yearning to create images that resonate on a deeper level — images that go beyond the bright shiny, happy storyline, and instead, tell the complete human story. There simply isn’t enough imagery out there that truly represents and honors mothers in all their complexity. I see plenty of happy moments, but where are the rest of our emotions represented?

The Complexity of Motherhood

Mother’s face many struggles throughout their motherhood journey. Some struggle with losing their identity in motherhood by giving all of themselves to their children and family, sometimes in part by ending or pausing careers that were significant to their lives. Other struggles I have seen are about the changing of their bodies. One mom said to me “I’ve lost feeling sexy. I need to find the woman-ness, or the essence of my womanhood within my motherhood journey.” And one in eight moms struggle with the heavy weight of child loss. And there are so many more to list. Here are a few more examples:

• Mom guilt of all kinds
• Grieving not having more  
• Sleep deprivation and not being able to rest on your own terms
• Balancing family and work (feelings of having to do it all)
• Navigating challenges our older children face alongside them
• Self-worth and body image
• Gender roles and expectations
• Decline in selfcare
• The compounding stress of raising multiple kids
• In some cases having little to no support (single parenting)

Despite these hard emotional experiences, there is nothing I love to see more than women embracing themselves. To love and accept every piece of themselves as beautiful, perfectly imperfect humans. This can happen inside the safe container of intimate motherhood photography.

Intimate Motherhood Photography

Intimate Motherhood Photography is focused around mothers and their children, starting in pregnancy and continuing on throughout their lifetime. These photography sessions aim to create deeply connected imagery of mothers with their babies throughout all stages of life and motherhood. I encourage for these sessions take place in a familiar place, like the home. However, they can also be done in a studio or outdoors. It all really depends on what is comfortable for the family. Some examples of intimate motherhood settings are spending time cuddling in bed, sharing a bath or shower with littles and being together enjoying activities they love.

There are three rules for intimate motherhood sessions that are really important to keep in mind:

1. NO GUARDS OR WALLS — Mothers don’t have to hide who they really are or whatever invisible struggles they are moving through. This is a zero judgment zone.

2. NO EXPECTATIONS — As the photographer, there are no expectations placed on the mother or her children. This could be worries like “misbehaving children” or about being photogenic.

3. NO PRESSURE TO PERFORM — At no time will a mother or her children be asked to do anything that makes them uncomfortable or doesn’t feel natural or authentic. This is a safe space.

Within an intimate motherhood session, you as the photographer really have to hold space for mothers and their children to truly be seen and accepted. We can place them in an environment, but we have to let them unfold naturally, so no over-posing. It’s about capturing moments that feel authentic to each mothers individual experience. To do this you can try the following techniques:

• Slow down and observe a little more. 
• See how they naturally interact and encourage more of that behavior. 
• Speak in a lower and softer tone. 
• Play music that matches the mood you are going for.

Facilitating Vulnerability

A pivotal part of creating the space to be open and authentic is vulnerability. Vulnerability often invites the possibility of judgment and can be hard to draw out in someone you don’t know intimately, but our job as photographers is to do just that. 

To help facilitate an open space for vulnerability you can do a few things. 

Before the session you can send a questionnaire that asks each mother to really do some deep thought on their journey, and discuss some of the joys and the struggles they have had. This allows them to reflect and speak their truth. This makes it easier to step into the mindset of being open come session time.

Another way to connect deeper, if you are a mom yourself, is to share your own experiences in session. Being open and honest with your clients about your own experiences can create space to connect on a deeper level and show women that you sympathize with all parts of motherhood. 

Furthermore, showing your clients that they are accepted just as they are and giving them encouraging words and affirmations will really go a long way in making them comfortable. Once their shield falls, it opens the session up for deeply connected photos that tell their unique story.

Changing the Narrative 

Mothers navigate a world filled with expectations and pressures, where authenticity can feel like a rarity. Yet, it is our job as photographers to tell the honest stories of our clients, and motherhood is one important and incredible story to tell. Through intimate motherhood photography sessions, I’ve witnessed the transformative power of authenticity—the beauty that emerges when the guard comes down and mothers simply allow themselves to be comfortable in their own skin. It is truly an amazing gift to capture and provide to mothers to pass down for their children!

We, as photographers, have the power to change the narrative about motherhood and what it means to be a mom. By helping to change the narrative through intimate motherhood sessions, and the values they hold, we can continue to grow as a society. Photographers have a unique opportunity to do so by capturing images that represent mothers as the real humans they are and not just a perfect exterior image!

So, photographers, I invite you to join me in this pursuit of authenticity—to capture the raw, unfiltered beauty of motherhood and celebrate the strength of the mothers everywhere. Together, let’s redefine the narrative, one frame at a time.

Brooke Holliday serves Seattle-area mothers and families with her photography that aims to capture and celebrate the full-spectrum of the human emotional experience. Learn more about her on her website

As a thank you to our readers, we’re pleased to offer you a Rangefinder exclusive discount code to get 25% off The Portrait Masters course below. Use the code RF25 at checkout to redeem. This code cannot be used in combination with any other sales.

Last summer, photographer Sarah Sudhoff spent a month in the small Italian town of Galatina. She had been awarded the Domas Artist Residency, for which the recipient is given a house to live in for a month and, as she came to learn, not much else. 

“I just wandered around the town not knowing anyone and not speaking the language,” Sudhoff said in a talk at Andrew Durham Gallery, where her work is installed. “I was in a house, and that was all I had. What do you do when you travel halfway across the world and only have access to the sun, the water, the town, and yourself?”

The results of that month comprise The Past is Ever Present, some 18 pieces for which Sudhoff used lace from Galatina and cyanotype-prepared fabric to create photographic works of art, as well as a performance and two videos. The word cyanotype derives from the Greek words for “dark blue” and “impression.” It is a printing formulation on various surfaces sensitive to ultraviolet and blue light that renders a blue-toned result. 

Sudhoff had packed a minimum of garments, leaving room in her suitcase for pre-dyed cyanotype cloth in light-sealed packages. As she absorbed the ambiance of Galatina, what struck her initially was the beautiful lace that hung in all the windows. Subsequently, she purchased several pieces of lace to incorporate into her innovative printing process.

Sarah Sudhoff, “The Past is Ever Present” 2024, performance

The show’s centerpiece is an eight-minute video documenting Sudhoff’s use of her body, the lace, and the sun to create intriguing patterns on the blue cloth. Working on the roof terrace of her house, she laid on a piece of lace, spread a cyanotype cloth over her body, and yet another piece of lace over that. Sudhoff stopped the processing by washing the fabric in a blue tub and hanging it to dry on the roof’s clothesline. In the gallery, three of these actual printed pieces are suspended adjacent to the video. Visible on the dark blue fabrics are subtle outlines of Sudhoff’s body and patterns created by the various laces. 

Sarah Sudhoff, “The Past is Ever Present,” 2024, cyanotypes on linen

Sudhoff says of her process, “In processing the cyanotypes, I would count meditatively and silently for eight minutes, allowing each piece to develop in the sun, thus creating a unique record of time, place, and my silhouette. A map, revealing my journey and yet obscuring some of the details, was waiting for me to uncover them.”

Sarah Sudhoff, “Lace Study, No. 4,” 2024, archival print on paper

The show also includes four photographs of Sudhoff’s nude body interacting with pieces of lace hanging on the terrace. These are essentially light studies in which the sun shining through the lace creates shadow patterns on the artist’s body, the white-washed wall behind her, and the stone-tiled floor. In another installation, six photographs of the lace undulating in the breeze are printed on feather voile and suspended in two rows. The delicate fabric moves in response to air currents in the gallery, much like the lace in the photographs. 

Another series of photographs on view, Via Cavour, depicts the wall of La Basilica di Santa Caterina D’Alessandria, a 14th-century basilica near Sudhoff’s house. Arranged along the gallery’s hallway, more than a dozen photographs of the roughly textured surface recreate Sudhoff’s experience of walking past it every day. “It was my constant and served as my compass to find my way home,” she said. “The old walled city and the slower pace of Galatina served as the inspiration for The Past is Ever Present.”

Sarah Sudhoff, “Via Cavour, No. 2-11,” 2024, archival print on paper

The basilica, with its layers of history, encouraged her to work with layers of fabric. “I was inspired by the basilica’s gorgeous frescoes, its blue ceiling, and these unrepaired areas where the frescos had broken off, revealing the drawings underneath,” Sudhoff said. “I became interested in the layers of history and the vulnerability of the materials, the space, and thinking about my own vulnerability.” 

The basilica also prompted Sudhoff to investigate patriarchy, eroticism, saints, and the mysteries of religion. Although her body under the fabric and lace did not have any overt religious intent, it did resemble a shroud. She was influenced by the integration of religion and culture in Galatina, where the town celebrated numerous religious holidays while she was there. Sudhoff was struck by how everything came to a standstill during these observances. 

Sarah Sudhoff, “Embodied Presence” (detail) 2024, photographic prints on feather voile

These textile-based pieces address themes that have concerned Sudhoff previously. As a single mother, she has explored the domestic roles and invisible labor of parenting, as well as matriarchal lineage. Her grandparents fled Cuba with their daughter, Sudhoff’s mother. In El Recuerdo, an exhibition and performance piece in 2021, Sudhoff paid tribute to her grandmother with a video showing her washing her grave, as well as a performance in which she swung from knotted ropes, referencing her grandmother’s boat journeys across the ocean.

During the pandemic, Sudhoff explored illness and mortality. In Cared For at the Blaffer Art Museum in 2022, her work questioned those who care for the health of women. Sudhoff researched the technologies that examine and penetrate female bodies in the medical field and used her own history of treatment for cancer as source material for the show. “I underwent surgery for cervical cancer the first week of graduate school,” she said. “That set the trajectory of my artistic career.” Sudhoff has been using her body since then to connect with her audience.

Sudhoff allows her personal experiences to dictate her subjects and materials. Her background as a photojournalist is a constant component of her work. She delves deeply into what it means to be a woman and mother in today’s political climate. Prior to the work discussed here, she photographed and performed in hospitals, morgues, medical museums, and her doctors’ offices. In a 2022 interview with Caroline Frost about Focusing Screen for Glasstire, she talked about the numerous examinations she has undergone.

“At times, I’ve felt objectified by specific, repetitive medical and gynecological exams and have become a little numb to the treatment of my body in these spaces,” Sudhoff said. “Performance is another form of communication, similar to writing or speaking. I speak in visuals. My gestures, body position, and images evoke emotions and provide clarity far beyond what I could ever say.”

Sudhoff’s performance and textile-based photographic work continues to explore topics she encounters as she dissects ongoing private and public expressions of self. Her interest in using materials to express her ideas and emotions while still being true to herself as a photographer has resulted in a growing separation from two-dimensional work. She has written that “textiles have the ability to create tangible expressions of ephemeral experiences and encapsulate a specific time and place” and “speak to the feminine or domestic realm.”

Sarah Sudhoff, “Embodied Presence,” 2024, photographic prints on feather voile

The Past is Ever Present at Andrew Durham Gallery continues Sudhoff’s examination of her past and its impact on her present. The ritual of printing, washing, and hanging the cyanotype textiles has produced compelling documentation of her investigations during the residency. Her body of powerful performances, videos, and photographs reveals Sudhoff’s continuing experimentation with materials and processes, resulting in her work moving away from the aesthetic confines of the gallery wall.

Sarah Sudhoff: The Past is Ever Present is on view at Andrew Durham Gallery through May 18, 2024.

Why does it feel like AI chatbots are becoming dumber?

Over Exposed

Google is hellbent on crowding out search results with AI-generated “advice” — which is often flawed, sometimes with devastating consequences.

This week, during its splashy I/O conference, the company made yet another blunder. As The Verge reports, the tech giant showed off its Gemini AI offering suggestions for what to do when the lever on a manual film camera isn’t moving all the way — except that it made some genuinely horrible suggestions.

Among Gemini’s dubious “things you can try,” was a highlighted bullet point to “open the back door” of the camera to gently remove the jammed film — which as any film photographer knows, would expose most if not the entire roll, thereby ruining any photos you may have taken so far.

The blunder highlights glaring issues with the current crop of AI tools, which are still prone to confidently misleading users by hallucinating facts or wildly misinterpreting existing information on the web.

Searching for Meaning

It’s not even the first time Google has been caught showing its AI give misleading advice. Last year, Google’s chatbot, which was called Bard at the time, stated that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope took the first picture of an exoplanet, or a planet outside of our solar system — which is blatantly false.

More recently, the company started testing its experimental AI search feature called AI Overviews — formerly known as Search Generative Experience, in yet another rebrand — on unsuspecting users who didn’t opt into the test.

Unfortunately, the feature is still stuck in the Stone Age. It can’t even reliably name fruits that end with “um.” Earlier this year, it was even caught pushing malware-laden spam sites.

With Google doubling down on AI, the future of the search we’ve come to love — and then tolerate — could soon look dramatically different. And that doesn’t bode well, considering its traditional search has already been overrun with AI-generated junk and scammers that exploit search engine optimization.

In short, we highly advise against using Google’s flawed AI to get help with a new hobby, especially when it involves risking an entire roll of film. Instead, we recommend the assistance of human experts who aren’t glorified plagiarism machines.

More on Google: Google Execs Say Employees Will Be Rewarded for Huge Profits With Fewer Layoffs

You asked for it, and we’ve done it. We came out with our own presets. We’re calling these the photojournalism presets because, well, they work great for just that genre. However, they’re also mostly designed around working with humans. So they’re fantastic for studio portrait photographers too. This article gives you visual examples of all 20 presets in our Photojournalism Presets Pack, as applied to various portraits we’ve taken over the years. And if you want, you can purchase them right here at our store.

The Phoblographer has a large database of portraits that we’ve shot over the years. So we’ve tested these presets on Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica, Panasonic Lumix, Olympus, OM System, and Fujifilm RAW files. No matter what camera you own, you’re probably going to like these Lightroom presets.

Why Buy These Lightroom Presets

A total of 20 different presets make up our first Presets Pack. Ten of these are color-based and the remaining 10 are focused on black and white results. We developed these to ensure the results don’t overlap between presets, and keeping in mind that they are meant to help you edit with ease. Some of these are Adaptive presets, meaning they scan your photos for faces and skies and skilfully apply edit masks only to those areas. They were developed by us on Adobe Lightroom Classic and you can even adjust the intensity of the presets using the Amount slider in the Develop module

For those of you who’d like to use these presets on the go, we have good news for you. You can even upload these presets to Adobe Lightroom (formerly known as Lightroom Mobile), to be able to use them on your mobile devices.

Color Presets

Use the sliders below to see the effects of each preset on the portrait.

Black And White

These are available for purchase right now. You can buy the color or monochrome sets separately or buy both of them together at a discount. Visit our online store to buy them.