Stories from pregnant women models
1.Cherie:
What does it feel like to pose nude and pregnant with a bunch of other pregnant
women? Strange, liberating, slightly erotic, rejuvenating, inspiring ...
it can help to catalyze the inner birth experience that goes on in preparation
for the imminent outer one; I came to realize that not only was being pregnant
a universal and generic experience, it was also a very individual and unique
experience, and on both counts, one to be relished. Every woman's body is
unique and somehow different to every other woman's body. The different possibilities
of shape, color, and size, are infinite. Likewise, her mind is a very unique
reflection of that Self that emanates through womanhood. That same simultaneous
generic and individual experience also applies to the birth, and then to
the mothering experience. I am one of millions of unique women who get pregnant
and give birth in unique ways every year to millions of unique babies. Being
clothed seems to conceal the magnitude of that reality. Our outer persona,
ego or 'little self' (as Buddhists might describe it) is more concerned with
how we might appear to others, and our pre-occupation with fashion accentuates
this state of mind. Being pregnant, and naked, amongst other naked pregnant
women, invariably eliminates it, leaving one feeling more connected, more
confident, and more excited about the experience to come.
2. Aileen:
Prior to this experience, I had never thought about being photographed in the
nude until I had become pregnant. Pregnancy is such a wonderful experience,
one that I wanted to capture in print and the photo sessions that I was involved
in allowed me to do that. When a woman becomes pregnant, her body morphs
into something that is magical and wonderous! I look forward to sharing this
experience with my son.
3. Charis:
I found the photo shoots to be extremely cathartic. After many people making
comments like "you're huge, are you carrying twins", in which they
meant no harm, but nontheless hurt my feelings, I was able to transcend that.
During the shoots I felt beautiful. They were raw and intimate, a perfect
transition into motherhood. Labor is raw and intimate. Pregnancy is full
of dichotomies, you're scared yet somehow you know everything is fine, you
have no direction, and yet somehow find your way. Everything I ever believed
in, every preconceived notion I had flew out the door the minute Aidan was
born. My ego melted, I surrendered. The photo shoots prepared me for that
letting go, that stripping away of masks and letting the world see me as
I truly am... So thank you Cara for the experience. Namaste, Charis
4. Sonia:
Having photos taken of my nude and pregnant body was not just a memorable experience,
but one that was empowering. I was at first tentative about the idea. I am
no model. I don't think I have a model body, a model look. And so it felt
strange, taking my clothes off. I wasn't sure I could do it, especially in
front of all those people, the camera, the energetic air of a busy music
store like Amoeba. But, after having done the shoots, I not only feel more
comfortable with my body, I was better able to cope with being a pregnant
woman, a woman who would soon have to shed my clothes in front of a room
of doctors and nurses in a rather compromising state. In this way, the experience
prepared me for labor. And, of course, it's nice to be considered a prop
of art.
5. Andrea:
Well, standing in a room of naked pregnant women, surrounded by colors and
textures, I felt like a living miracle and a living work of art . . . the
experience was unique. I have never felt so beautifully female before nor
since in my life. I thank you for the photos you gifted us for modeling,
and even more I thank you for the experience and the memory.
6. Marisa:
Odd feelings of being in a strange rather sharp environment of the hair salon
with strange scary objects all around. Not the usual style conscious fashion
orientated trendy salon. Even old fashioned barber chairs that I didn't particularly
want to be on with my full pregnant body and especially not naked. Appreciating
the other women's acceptance of the bizarre environment and their ability
to have a good time-naked and semi-naked and Cara making it all seem very
normal and acting like a kind and professional artist.
7. Anna:
Modeling, nude and pregnant, for Cara was just what I needed for a pregnancy
that required courage and a free spirit. I was going for a natural, vaginal
delivery after two cesareans. Cara's work with the Gestation Project, like
birth, is a rich mix of vulnerability and introversion.
8. MJ:
I used to be anonymous. I used to slip out of the office to play tennis in
the middle of the day. I used to hold my book in front of my face when an
acquaintance would walk down the train aisle, looking for a seat. I've never
sung Karaoke, never danced on a bar, never shook my arm over my head when
the performer asked for an audience volunteer. When my husband and I made
the decision to get pregnant, I had no idea how exposed I was about to become.
As my baby pushed the parameters of my body outwards, I felt myself breaking
off from the mold of society. I was morphing into otherness, shedding layers
of anonymity as I went. Pregnancy is open season. A protruding abdomen turns
women into targets for limitless stares, commentary, and uninvited touching.
As living paradoxes, we are at once mysterious and entirely understood. Our
private space has become unavoidably public. Our bodies isolate us from others,
and yet, win us acceptance into the oldest club in history. Like Hester Prynne,
we wear our plight across our fronts. And people notice. But not just strangers.
It was the people I worked with everyday who reacted most curiously to my
scarlet letter of abundance. Despite our years together in conference rooms
and happy hours, I became one thing to these people pregnant. If I was eating
yogurt and banana at my desk, I was having a pregnancy craving. If I was
walking down the hall well then I must be headed for the bathroom. I didn't
know what I wanted more, to disavow these people of what they thought they
knew of me, or simply go back to being anonymous. This is precisely why my
participation in Cara Judea Alhadeff's photoshoots was such an important
part of my pregnancy. Not just because I was able to spend the afternoon
with other people bearing the same load to carry. My prenatal yoga and natural
childbirth classes afforded me that. Being a part of Cara's vision meant
finally exposing myself as opposed to being exposed, removing the thin veils
of clothing that stood between the outside world and my inner world. I was
ready to reclaim the parts of myself that had transgressed into public domain.
I stood in an African Goddess hair salon naked, chilly, and uncomfortable
with a desire to say to the camera, Here. Is this what you've been wanting
to see? Take your look then. Stare at me. I am swollen. I've gone brown with
ripeness. My nipples have spread and darkened like mud. My legs have veins
that show blue through skin. When you see me on the street, you see none
of this. To you, I represent so much more than I want to. Shooting pregnant
women in a hair salon, and later a zoo, a nightclub, a record store, and
an empty auditorium exploded the expected, and what fell into place was a
narrative of maternal magical realism. How else can you capture something
that is eternally natural, and yet feels like a logistical impossibility?
Religiously chaste and yet erotically sensual? Communal and yet isolating?
Symmetrical y perfect and yet grotesque? How can you display the love one
feels for her unborn child, the strain she feels from carrying him, and the
daunting thrill she has of pushing him out? How can a photographic exhibit
tell the story of the emotional duality and the spiraling contradictions
that make up this incredibly unique and ephemeral chunk of life? Cara turned
the image of expectancy into hyperbole. She took what we think we know, what
we've all seen a million times before, and propelled it out of our comfort
zone. She colonized a new realm characterized by playful swaps. Compositionally,
Cara shows us a world of intimacy and of distance, of fullness and wonder.
We are solid in mass and in number and yet at times, quite uncertain. We
manage to exude a peacefulness and sense of belonging despite the incongruity
of being naked in public settings. From the perspective of model, it seemed
that Cara approached these shoots with very little expectation. She never
knew how many of us were going to show up (one model had the very permissive
excuse of having gone into labor during one of Cara' shoots); she never knew
the level of intimacy she could attempt to establish among total strangers;
and there was always the variable of sensitive body issues. One model agreed
to pose nude as long as her body and her face were not in the same shot.
Without so much as a furrowed brow, Cara accepted this woman's personal limitation
and shot accordingly. It is this acceptance, openness, freedom, and whimsy
so evident in Cara's work. By the end of the afternoon incidentally, the
modest woman seemed to have lost her inhibition and appeared before the camera
lens without restraint. Those shoots were a process of shedding inhibition.
Letting go when you're holding so much was an incredibly cathartic exercise
and one I look back on with fondness and warmth. We entered record stores
and hotel lobbies feeling out of place in our own uncovered skin, and midway
through the shoot, we were all usually remarking on how unbelievably normal
it had become to be naked with each other. Yeah yeah, your belly button has
popped out like a meat thermometer, and your abdomen is rippled with stretch
marks, and my ass is fat, and your ankles have blown up, and here we all
are naked at the zoo and I've never felt so at ease with a group of people
in all nine months of my pregnancy. In fact, at one point in the hair salon
shoot, a client had to get rinsed in the room where we were posing. Cara
gave us a minute to cover up, but by that point in the day, none of us really
felt the need to scramble for clothing for the five or ten minute interlude.
Interestingly enough, it was the fully clothed pair, the woman client and
her male stylist who seemed out of place. This was an environment turned
on its head. And the photos bear witness to the invented reality. Tim OBrien
wrote, in his contemporary collection of short stories entitled, The Things
They Carried, that sometimes story truth is truer than happening truth.?When
I look at Cara's photos of pregnant women horizontal in a hair salon, perched
on barstools, roaming the aisles of a record shop, milling around a lion's
den, I think, yes, that's what it was like to be pregnant. Even though none
of those people would actually be doing any of those things in a conventional
reality, Cara's work illuminates a very real truth about the complexities
of pregnancy. As the client lay back for her rinse, and the stylist kept
to his task, I grabbed a fashion magazine and sank into a swivel chair. I
was one of a dozen naked pregnant women in a room filled with painted masks
and Aboriginal woodcarvings. I flipped glossy magazine pages and relished
the moment of feeling once again unremarkable.
9. Anne Francis:
I enjoyed the experience. It was fun and such a pleasure to hang out with other
pregnant women while the project unfolded around us. And it really brought
home how life is art; and art is life. Life in our bellies, in our veins,
in the capturing of a moment on film... You know?
10. Alexandra:
I found the experience physically liberating. As your body expands in ways
you never expected, you are constantly trying to determine what clothing
looks nice, potentially how to hide some other new lumps? etc. But while
modeling amongst other pregnant women, I strangely found myself feeling at
ease with my body as a whole; as a whole it was representing pregnancy, not
just the stomach, and as a whole it represented a beautiful process. Of course,
the juxtaposition against the lions certainly helped lessen my focus on my
body and its flaws.
11. Julia:
What I loved most about being in the gestation project was being and communicating
with the other pregnant women, naked, in the space. Pregnancy is such a unique,
sacred, special time, with a huge learning curve for first timers. Meeting
to prepare for the shots seemed to honor that time, step away from our busy
lives. Posing with out close brought an instant/false intimacy allowing each
of us to really take a look at the unique shapes of the pregnant body in
different places in a city, have a conversation, or ask a question to a second
time mom about something that you had had your mind on and kept forgetting
to ask someone about...all with out embarrassment. My body changed so dramatically
that it was sometimes hard to remember that it was really happening and seeing
the others in similar situations, not just through the layering of clothes
was comforting, and bonding. I loved it and I enjoy running into some of
those people around town now.
12. Devra:
Modeling with the puppets while pregnant represented an image of women's cycle
of Life - there we were, naked and abundant, surrounded by larger than life
images of women in mourning. We were on the precipice of bringing new life
into the world - almost in defiance of the fact that women throughout the
world loose their children to war, tyranny, hunger and poverty every day.
13: Maria:
I never felt so full of life and energy than when I was pregnant. I loved by
changing body and I wanted to preserve the memory of my body in this state.
A friend offered to take some semi nude or nude photos of me or go with me
to make a body cast. Her photo idea was to do something like Demi Moore did
on the cover of some magazine years ago. Neither option sounded appealing.
I guess I felt embarrased to pose for my friend. The irony is that I felt
comfortable posing in a strange environment with a bunch of strangers and
for a complete stranger.
14. Monique:
I wasn't quite sure what it was going to happen when I first walked into the
hair salon. It sort of felt like going into a girls locker room for the first
time with everyone checking each other out politely but with deep curiosity
and then as we began to relax we could start to ask all kinds of questions
that only pertain to pregnant people. It was so beautiful to see bellies
of all shapes and sizes and to know that we were all safely carrying around
a new generation of people in them. Then, to see the pictures months after
having the babies was slightly strange. The people in them looked sort of
foreign. We all looked different with our empty tummies. It was a great experience.
Thank you.
15.Yami:
I am an artist myself and clearly recognize Cara's passion for the subconscious,
impossible, and surreal living art. Cara's easiness and artistic vision completely
blew my mind. My expectations from the first photo shooting were thrown out
of the window. I had prepared myself for an average experience, some traditional
and disconnected belly shots...Instead, I found myself deeply immersed in
this artistic, expressive, fulfilling and abstract art project. I felt connected
to the awkwardness of the setting, the boxing gloves in our arms, the unexpected
goggles, the fabrics covering our faces, the different bodies, ethnicities?and
all empowering pregnant women It was surreal. I became an open book giving
a story, showing a feeling, creating an image, recreating a human concept,
being a restless, strong, weak, unexpected , happy pregnant woman ? Modeling
for Cara was an intrinsic and magical experience; I truly look forward to
sharing my pictures with my daughter, Xara Luna.
16. Stephanie:
The mommas' bodies are beautiful, poised for the picture, but the babies are
the ones most present. Surrounded by these bellies, butts and boobs, I found
comfort in my baby's company with the other growing babies.
17. Hankie:
Modeling for Cara was a unique experience that gently pushed me outside my
comfort zone and opened a door to nonconformity and free __expression. I
soon found myself relaxed, content, and bonding with the other mothers-to-be
in a special way.
18. Nicole:
Pregnancy is an absolute amazing and beautiful progression and pregnant woman
are radiant. I totally enjoyed being pregnant and watching my body go through
this metamorphosis. As I enjoy and appreciate seeing other pregnant woman.
I think society makes women self conscious and woman to often want to cover
up when they are pregnant and hide there bodies, as if they are ashamed.
I think this is a time when you should be proud to have so many curves and
feel free to let it show. Being a part of this photography project was very
invigorating and liberating. It helped my let go of my inhibitions and helped
me feel free. There was something almost primitive about it. Being able to
share this with all the other woman was a extraordinary experience and totally
refreshing . Thanks for such a great experience.
19. Adela:
Pregnant women look at their body very often. We spend many hours in the mirror
looking at hour belly, our breasts, our face... Sometimes I hate the changes
in my body because they are the physical manifestation of how much control
I am losing in my own life. Nobody looks at a pregnant woman; they look and
see a future mother, a baby growing, a metaphor for abundance. I liked modeling
for you because I felt that you were focusing on the amazing volumes and
combinations of our bodies, but not necessarily because they represented
any mistery of nature reproducing itself or any ideal of beauty. Personally,
I always welcome the chance of doing something out of the ordinary, and leaving
for a moment my very petit-boeurgeoise life.