This book gives pregnant women the information and affirmation they crave. The fine-art images offer a unique and personalized view into the diversity of the pregnant form. The stories of challenge and triumph cover a broad range of issues, such as infertility, the effect of pregnancy on relationships, and the loss of identity it can engender. These strong mothers will teach others how to connect with their inner strength, so they too can create the life they want.
Jennifer Loomis is an award winning and internationally recognized fine art maternity photographer, best known for her groundbreaking work with the pregnant nude and for helping society redefine the image of the pregnant female form.
Jennifer's first book, Portraits of Pregnancy: The Birth of a Mother, combines beautiful photography and her passion for capturing the female form during the prime of pregnancy. While the pictures are beautiful they are accompanied by real, authentic stories of the difficulties as well as the beauty of pregnancy. In a culture that celebrates women returning to their thinnest quickly after pregnancy and not gaining too much weight, this book is both timely and counter-cultural in many ways. The book also features lesbian couples, single mothers (by choice and otherwise), and ethnically diverse families.
Jennifer's work caught the attention of another pioneer, Annie Leibovitz, whose studio manager began referring maternity clients to her in the '90s. Since she started over 14 years ago, Jennifer has photographed more than 1,800 women and their families, from welfare mothers to celebrities. She is one of the only maternity photographers who has successfully combined a previous career in photojournalism with fine-art photography.
Jennifer operates studios in New York, San Francisco and Seattle. Her work has been prominently featured in the media, including TIME magazine, CBS's The Morning Show, Entertainment Tonight, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, Fit Pregnancy, Pregnancy Magazine, NPR, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, DailyCandy.com, About.com, MSNBC.com and many other sites. Her first book of photography and stories of the transformative journey of pregnancy, Portraits of Pregnancy: The Birth of a Mother, was released in May 2009 by Sentient Publications, and continually ranks in Amazon's top 100 books for Women's Studies/Motherhood.
Loomis uses her training as a fine art photographer and her expertise as a documentary photojournalist to tell the story of each woman. Her business motto "Feel Beautiful" came about because many women said they felt beautiful during and after photo shoots. This saying is important to Loomis because she is passionate about changing the way pregnant women see their bodies as well as the way society sees pregnant women. The passion shows through in both her photography and professionalism. She's not only a pioneer in pregnancy photography but she's been instrumental in bringing semi-nude maternity photography into the mainstream. For years pregnant women have been hidden and Loomis has been working hard to bring these images into the public domain, to challenge and redefine society's definition of beauty.
Loomis has a Masters in photojournalism from the University of Missouri, School of Journalism. She focused on many international women's health and education issues for a wide range of editorial and non-profit clients including Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MSNBC.com, CARE International, TIME magazine, U.S. News & World Report and Los Angeles Times. She has produced several online documentary photo projects with audio and video on aging, birth and home birth.
Loomis has studied at the San Francisco Art Institute with Linda Connor, Maine Photo Workshops and privately with Joyce Tenneson, Michelle LeVigne, and her biggest influence is San Francisco photographer Ruth Bernhard. In addition, she has recently developed a relationship with Caldwell Sculpture Studio who helped her develop her vision for a three dimensional structure created from steel. As a previous sculptor, potter and painter, Jennifer is looking forward to drawing on her archive of more than 150,000 images and incorporating the female pregnant form into the 3-D medium as a part of her new creative work.
A Visual Communications Fellow at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and then returning for two years as a Visual Communications Faculty Member, Jennifer loves teaching and has taught at the University of Missouri, School of Journalism, Cascades Photography Academy, and as a guest teacher at the Frye Art Museum of Seattle during their Women and the Arts Program.
