INTERVIEW: "It completely changed my opinion of myself"

Sunday 29 March 2020

A local photographer has opened up about her personal journey, sharing how shooting mums in their undies changed the way she views herself.

Last September, photographer Sophie Darwin teamed up with May Bourne, a midwife and the founder of 'Positive Birth Jersey’.

The pair asked local mums to “bare it all” for a series of photographs, which they hope to display at the Arts Centre later this year.

Pictured: The shoot aimed to promote body positivity among local mums.

The goal of ‘Motherhood’ was to promote body positivity by showing the reality of motherhood and the variety of shapes that mothers’ bodies come in - a message that resonated with more women than Sophie and May ever anticipated.

The pair – who met at the birth of Sophie’s second child – thought they would be lucky if five mums agreed to take part, but a total of 30 got in touch.

“It was overwhelming,” Sophie said. “I was so grateful that women would want to do this. They were so forthcoming and inspiring. They all had their own stories, different body shapes and different concerns about their body.

“It just felt very raw and so intimate. It was all about capturing the very essence of women’s vulnerability, and their strength at the same time. I felt very empowered.”

Pictured: Sophie herself said she felt empowered by the photographs.

For Sophie, a mother of two, the photoshoot was equally familiar and unusual. As a wedding and family photographer, she is always seeking to capture emotion in its purest form.

"When I am taking photographs, it comes from the heart,” she explained. “There is a lot of feeling in what I do. I am very much a heart-on-sleeve kind of person.”

 But for ‘Motherhood’, she had to focus on the mum’s bodies, from the stretch marks to the round tummies and the scars. “It completely changed my opinion of myself, I feel more comfortable in my own skin,” Sophie said.

"We are led by social media in believing that women are supposed to look a certain way, but bodies change a lot. Some will ‘snap back,’ and others will not, and that’s ok."

Pictured: "We can’t be sad about the things that happened to our body when it’s actually all the more reasons to celebrate it.”

"We wanted to show the reality of what that looks like. It was really touching to see mums look at the pictures and say, ‘I look like that and she’s beautiful, so maybe I am beautiful too.'

“Criticising how we look is such a waste of time. We can’t be sad about the things that happened to our body when it’s actually all the more reasons to celebrate it.”

Yet, ‘Motherhood’ saw Sophie photograph one of her favourite subject, mums. The self-taught photographer says she always had an artistic side, and a love of photography. It was not until a few years ago, however, that she took a night class to learn how to use a camera that had been sitting unused in her house.

Pictured: May Bourne and Sophie Darwin.

She started “obsessively taking pictures of everything and anything” and it became “a hobby and passion” that she would pursue in her free time. Then one of her friends asked her to photograph her wedding in Wales, and, despite being scared of messing up, Sophie agreed.

“Photography is so important in documenting our lives. There is so much pressure to not mess up. To this day, those are still some of my favourite photographs.”

After this, she spent a summer getting work experience as a second shooter for Andy Le Gresley – “He was very insightful, I owe him a lot.”

Pictured: Sophie was initially scared to photograph one of her friends' wedding.

Fast forward to this year, and Sophie left her job in marketing and events to focus - no pun intended - on photography.

With her husband, Dean, they attend weddings in a pair, capturing complementary images of a couple’s big day. “It’s almost like a date night,” Sophie says.

Since her beginnings, Sophie has always been drawn to people, even though she tried all kinds of photography – including landscape and pets.

Her work, she says, is driven by a desire to document people’s lives, especially mums, and capture as much as she can, so that people can look back on the images and remember a special moment in their lives or a family member who is no longer there.

Pictured: Sophie says her work is driven by a desire to document people’s lives, especially mums.

“I lost my mum at 21," Sophie reflected.

"I was looking at pictures of me and my mum and there was only a few. I wished there was hundreds of them.

"Women are always thinking about their hair, or how they look, and don’t want to be in photographs. I tell them, ‘Take the photographs, get in the shot! Your kids don’t care if your hair is done or not, they love you no matter what.'

“I want everyone to have lots of pictures."