Worte der Mama:

„Dear Franzi photographed the birth of our son.
Photographing a birth cant be easy. Your subject is unlikely to be in a jubilant mood. Nobody will have flawlessly applied make-up, there could be lots of uneventful hours of waiting, the location might be little ’sterile‘. There’s unlikely to be champagne.

We didn’t end up with the home birth we wanted. Two weeks ‚over-due‘ we were finally induced on a Sunday afternoon. The two weeks previous, thanks to a very persistent prodromal labour, I’d falsely alerted Franzi at least once and she was very understanding when that came to nothing. She’d also let me know when she wasn’t going to be in town which was really good to know.

Thankfully Franzi was available and able to meet us at the hospital when we thought we things were finally happening.

Its hard to guarantee ‚photograph-worthy‘ action, especially in a hospital which is an inherently a foreign, sterile, ‚official‘ type place but Franzi was able to intuit the little things that were important to us. She was able to observe the little happenings that seem insignificant in the moment and tell a story that we could look back on. It’s not a story we could easily curate ahead of time and of course being a little busy myself, she was left to seek out the shots we’d want.

I look at my birth photos more often than a my wedding photos. I want to show everyone (if only i thought they were interested!). I know I was physically there in the room but regardless of how hard I tried to remain present to remember every detail, as happens during birth, I was transported elsewhere. My recollections are flooded with cloudy impressions, sounds and senses. It felt loud and chaotic but apparently it was actually pretty quiet and controlled. Franzis photos fill in these gaps.

I would absolutely recommend Franzi to anyone planning their birth. Her beautiful reportage style perfectly suits the unpredictable nature of birth and she’s able to capture those looks of pure love between partners, the grit of a birthing mother, the relief, the exhaustion, the fun, the self-depreciation, the drama and the sparkling banality. You’ll be glad you chose to document all this. Goose bumps!“