Hello! My name is Eric, I’m a Chicago based photographer, Right now I’m working on a coffee table book based on the beauty of motherhood. Summer 2005, I was out to dinner with some friends, we were enjoying our meal when a couple walked in and was seated at the table next to us. The couple was a man and a woman, the woman was very pretty and very pregnant. It wasn’t hard to over hear the other table because the man was talking so loud. The couple was checking out the menu and the man started on his pregnant wife, some of the quotes are as follows: “If I knew you were going to get this fat, I would have never married you.” “You should eat a salad, your getting too fat and ugly.” etc. . . Her eyes filled with tears, but she sat and took all of the abuse. As you could imagine my table was shocked, and its not like we could have intervened. This episode stuck with me and bothered me for weeks. I kept thinking what could I have done or do to fix the situation. The answer was to use my photographic talents to create a book of beauty to help educate the ignorant masses. My goal is to photograph 500 to 1000 pregnant women in various stages of pregnancy, as it stands I have 300 as of the date that this is written. I don’t have a publisher as of yet. When shooting, if the first shoot works well models are invited back for additional shoots. The usual shoot lasts between 2 and 4 hours. Models bring a couple different outfits of their choosing, and usually by the end of the shoot there is 1 or 2 sets I like and can use. Women have been hiding the their pregnant bellies for years not because it was private for a spouse, it was due to embarrassment perhaps being self conscious due to weight gain. . . One of the reasons I started my project was to give mothers-to-be ammunition in the fight to show the world pregnancy is beautiful. The subject really wasn't mainstream until Demi Moore broke this wide open exposing herself on the cover of vanity-fair in 1991. Although this was shocking at the time this method has become more and more popular in recent times.

Tags

See All Tags (52)