The parts of Pregnancy we cannot photograph

My personal photography project: The Landscape Within

Pregnancy is often described as one of the most incredible experiences a woman can go through. It is incredible indeed! There is so much excitement around the tiny human who will change everything.

This project grew from my own pregnancy and from a growing appreciation for what women's bodies carry long before a baby is placed in their arms.

Pregnancy asks for countless adaptations that often become expected rather than acknowledged: working through exhaustion when iron levels leave you barely able to stand, changing how you eat, move, sleep (don't even get me started on those pillow mountains in my bed) and live, watching your body become unfamiliar while continuing to show up each day.

These changes are so common that they can become invisible.

Through these photographs, I wanted to pause and honour that landscape. Not only the life being created, but the woman creating it!

I created The Landscape Within (with a help of my loving husband xx) because pregnancy can feel surprisingly lonely, even when you are surrounded by people who love you. I felt incredibly lonely through most of my pregnancy (as per today we are 8 months in).

Your partner can bring you snacks when you are hungry, rub your back when your body aches, listen when you need to talk and comfort you when the tears arrive from “nowhere“. They can walk beside you through the entire journey and love the baby growing inside you just as much as you do.

But they cannot feel what you feel.

They do not know what it is like to wake up in a body that seems slightly different every morning. They cannot feel the exhaustion in your bones, the heaviness, the aches, the changes in your breathing or the way your body slowly becomes unfamiliar territory. They can support you through it, but there is still a part of the journey that belongs only to you.

And perhaps that is one of the strangest things about pregnancy.

You are never alone, because there is literally another life growing within you, yet there can still be moments when you feel completely alone in what you are experiencing.

Pregnancy is also far more than a physical transformation. It is an emotional one too.

There can be days when you feel overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement, followed by an evening of tears because everything suddenly feels like too much. You can feel incredibly connected to the life growing inside you and, at the same time, wonder who you are becoming in the process…

Joy and fear can exist within the same day… Sometimes within the same hour!

There are questions about birth, motherhood, your body, your relationship, your work, your identity and the enormous unknown waiting on the other side. Everyone seems to have advice, stories and opinions, while the experience itself remains deeply personal.

And yet so much of this becomes invisible because pregnancy is so familiar. Men have no idea!

Women have been pregnant for as long as humans have existed. We recognise the growing belly. We recognise the scans, the milestones and the due date. We know what pregnancy is supposed to look like.

But knowing what something looks like is very different from knowing what it feels like to live through it.

That space between the visible and the experienced became the starting point for The Landscape Within.

I wanted to create photographs that explored pregnancy without relying on the familiar visual language of maternity photography. Instead of showing pregnancy only as a beautiful growing belly, I wanted to explore the emotional landscape underneath it: the uncertainty, anticipation, adaptation, vulnerability, strength and constant becoming.

This is why the photographs are somewhat abstract.

Before recognising the body, I want the viewer to feel something.

Horizon is about the beginning. Looking towards something you know is coming, without knowing exactly what lies ahead.

Fog is about the unseen. Everything changing within you that cannot necessarily be witnessed by anyone else.

New Moon is about becoming. The final stretch of pregnancy, when your body and mind begin preparing for the moment everything changes from before to after.

Each image represents a trimester, but also a different emotional landscape within pregnancy.

1.HORIZON

The beginning.

Looking towards what lies ahead.

A thin line of light appears before the sun reaches the sky.

The first trimester is filled with possibility. Hope arrives hand in hand with uncertainty, excitement with questions, and a future begins to take shape long before it can be seen. Everything feels distant and incredibly close at the same time.

Like looking towards the horizon, you know something is coming, even when most of the journey still lies beyond sight.

2.FOG

The unseen.

What changes within is not always visible from the outside.

The second trimester is often described as the easier chapter, yet it carries a world of invisible change.

The body stretches, adapts and grows while the mind makes space for an entirely new identity. Thoughts become louder, emotions ebb and flow, and advice arrives from every direction, often speaking over experiences that remain deeply personal.

The veil becomes a metaphor for fog in nature, obscuring what lies beyond while allowing fragments to emerge through it. It reflects everything happening within a woman that others may never notice, concealing and revealing only parts of the landscape within. Not every transformation is visible from the outside. 

3.NEW MOON

The becoming.

Preparing for what is about to emerge.

Before the moon grows full, it begins in darkness.

The final trimester is a season of preparation. The body grows heavier, movements become smaller, sleep changes, breathing changes, and every day carries the awareness that life is about to be divided into before and after.

The belly becomes a rising new moon, holding the promise of a beginning that has not yet arrived. It is a portrait of anticipation, surrender and the gathering of strength before birth.

This project is deeply personal to me because I created it while living (still living as the blog is posted) through my own pregnancy.

There have been so many moments when I have realised just how much women are asked to adapt during these months. Your body changes. Your energy changes. Your sleep changes. The way you eat, move and work changes. Your emotions change from one day to the next.

And because these things are so common, they can become easy to overlook.

I wanted to give those experiences somewhere to exist.

Not only the beautiful parts and not only the anticipation of meeting a baby.

But the woman carrying all of it.

The woman who is tired.

The woman who is excited.

The woman who is frightened.

The woman who is overwhelmed.

The woman who can laugh in the morning and cry in the afternoon.

The woman whose entire life is changing while everyone around her is waiting for the baby to arrive.

I created this project because I wanted women to recognise something of their own experience within these images. Perhaps one photograph reminds them of a feeling they could never quite explain. Perhaps another makes them think of a particular moment in their own pregnancy.

Most importantly, I wanted to create representation for the woman within the pregnancy story.

Because before there is a mother holding a baby in her arms, there is a woman carrying an enormous physical and emotional transformation.

And she deserves to be acknowledged.

The Landscape Within is my way of saying: I know there is much more happening here than what people can see.

I see the woman within the journey, not only the baby at the end of it.

And I hope, through these photographs, other women might feel a little less alone in theirs.

With love xx

Irena