Sarah Miles!

Sarah Jae miles is a photographer that captures the essence of birth, motherhood and our connection to the earth through emotive portraits within striking landscapes.

She draws her inspiration for her art from her work as a birth photographer and doula, where she supports many women in her community on the Mid North coast of New South Wales, Australia. 

Sarah is a self taught photographer who began capturing images of the landscape in outback Australia. Her images have been published in the Sydney Horning Herald, on ABC news and in various outback and aviation magazines. 

Sarah's Statment:

"As a woman who documents the birth of mothers and babies for a living, and who has given birth myself, I know that the experience of birth is almost never what a mother has envisioned prior to the act itself.

Whether the experience was empowering or traumatic, there is always a profound moment that sticks with the mother for years afterwards.

These photos are a glimpse into those moments that were felt by each woman pictured in these photographs. Her own individual birth story.

I start the work by interviewing each model about her birth and then use her words to create a reflection of the most profound moment within her birth story by asking her to re-enact it using seemingly unrelated everyday objects within striking landscapes.

The vulnerability, joy, trauma, love, grief and complexity of birth is a topic that has become taboo in our modern culture. Many men, children and even women find viewing actual birth images confronting and it is because of this reason that I have started creating this body of work. I aim to open up conversations about birth, to normalise it once again so that women can gain some knowledge early on, even before they become pregnant, so that they do not fear birth anymore. The less fear and more knowledge they have, the better their birth experience will be.

These photographs are beautiful, easily digestible depictions of true birth stories."