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Picture Perfect
Breastfeeding Photography Is a Work of Art By Kim Seidel
Australian photographer Dez Murad wants to challenge beliefs, educate and inspire with her stunning photographs of mothers breastfeeding. "My goal is to raise the standard of a breastfeeding image to at least be as equally acceptable as that of a bottle feeding image," she says. "I'm interested in raising the appeal and acceptance in our society, so a mother can breastfeed in peace knowing her community accepts her choice."
Murad, the mother of two daughters, ages 5 and 3, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, started taking an interest in breastfeeding mothers as a photography subject about two years ago. "I found the images that were around were all of newborns and mothers who are still in the hospital," says Murad, who is expecting another baby in June. "There was very little of older children breastfeeding."
Through her photography, she says she wants to glamorize and normalize breastfeeding. In many of her photos, breastfeeding isn't the total focus of the photo. "I wanted to show that you can have an active life, still breastfeed and look good doing it," she says. "It's not all about seeing nipples and breasts. A lot of my photos you can't see them, but you can tell the woman is feeding." Murad hopes her photographs help to popularize the images, "so that young girls can grow up seeing them and be just as influenced as they are from magazine photos."
Many of her photos challenge a lot of people, which is exactly what she wants. One such example is of a 4-year-old child breastfeeding. "It wasn't too long ago that mini skirts caused a big issue about modesty and caused controversy; now we accept it," Murad says. "I'd like to see the same with breastfeeding women."
While Murad strives to redefine the breastfeeding woman and raise her profile to be accepted in the larger community, it's a big challenge. Recently she took a bikini shoot of a beautiful woman breastfeeding her second child. "I was surprised to be challenged by the very community that supports breastfeeding about this photo," she says. People remarked that she was "too good-looking" to be a mother breastfeeding.
Murad replied that the woman was a "real woman" who was "very confident about her body," so why not take the photo? "After all, we don't lose our sensuality once we become mothers," Murad says. "If anything, I think we are more powerful and more sensual for being mothers. I don't want to pigeon-hole what a woman should be or look like to feed, and this I find the most challenging aspect."
