Behind the Lens & Between the Feedings: Dispatch №7

What maternity leave taught me about photography

I've spent a lot of this series writing about slowing down. And I meant every word of it.

But here's the other side of that. Slowing down doesn't mean switching off. If anything, this chapter has quietly handed me some of the most useful lessons of my photography career. I just had to be still enough to receive them.

The girl who noticed the frames

Shortly after she started opening her eyes and actually taking in the world around her, my daughter became fixated on three framed photographs hanging on the wall behind our couch.

They're old black and white images of New York City from another era. The Brooklyn Bridge mid-construction. Wall Street before cars filled the street. Grand Central in the 1950s. Big, simple, monochrome. The kind of images that reward a long look.

I'd pick her up, say we are ‘playing museum’, and hold her in front of them and watch her study each one. And something funny happened, I started studying them again too. There is always something new to find in a photograph if you look long enough. I think I'd forgotten that somewhere between the deadlines and the deliverables. She reminded me.

Staying curious about an image, even one you've walked past a hundred times, is one of the most important things a photographer can do. It took a newborn to remind me of that.

The little moments are the big moments

This is the thing maternity leave has taught me most clearly about photography. I have spent years showing up for the milestone. The proposal, the first look, the first dance. And those moments matter enormously. I will never stop believing that. But what this season has shown me, frame by frame, is that the quieter moments carry just as much weight. The way she curls into my shoulder after finishing a bottle. The beginnings of a laugh. The grumpy face in the bathtub that my iPhone barely caught in time.

Nobody puts those on a save the date. But they are the ones I already know I'll come back to.

I wrote in Dispatch №4 about how stroller pace is making me a more observant photographer — a different angle on the same idea that's worth a read if this resonates. What I'd add here is that it's not just about seeing more slowly. It's about valuing what you see when you do.

What I'm taking back to my work

This maternity leave has given me two things I didn't expect to get from it. A deeper appreciation for the unscripted moment, and a reminder of why I picked up a camera in the first place.

Writing this blog has been part of that too. Reflecting on this season in real time, finding the words for what the images can't quite hold. It's made me a more intentional photographer. And getting back behind the lens for clients, even just a few times so far, confirmed what I hoped was still true: the passion is not only intact. It's sharper.

More soon. 📸🤍