Why So Many Moms Avoid the Camera: Understanding Postpartum Body Image

She Almost Didn't Book Because of Her Stomach.

Here's the Photo I Took Instead.

By Nicole Griffin, Award-Winning Boudoir Photographer | Nicole Griffin Photography

I've photographed hundreds of women.

Different ages, different sizes, different stories. Women who walked in, shaking and left ugly crying in the best way possible. Women who told me they hadn't looked at themselves in a mirror. Really looked at themselves. In years.

But there's one thing almost every single one of them has in common before we even start.

They apologize for their body.

And more often than not, they've already spent years slowly removing themselves from photographs long before they ever walk into my studio.

I'm not a mom, so I won't pretend to know what it feels like to grow a human being inside your body and then spend the next however many years putting that body last on the list. I can't speak to that from the inside.

What I can tell you is what I see from behind the lens.

The Women Nobody Thinks Are Struggling

I see women who run entire households, hold down demanding careers, solve problems for everybody else, and then walk into my studio and immediately start explaining why they're not sure they deserve to be there.

"I gained some weight."

"My stomach isn't what it used to be."

"I have stretch marks."

"I'm not really the type of woman who does something like this."

And every single time, I want to ask: who told you that?

A while back, a client came in for her session. She was warm, funny, a little nervous (which is completely normal). Before we even got started, she grabbed the fabric around her midsection and said, almost like she was warning me: "I have a mom pooch and stretch marks. Just so you know."

Just so you know.

Like it was something I needed to prepare for. Like it was a problem we'd have to work around together.

I didn't say much. I just started shooting.

And when I got to her stomach, really focused on it, lit it the way it deserved to be lit, what I saw through that lens stopped me.

Her skin told an entire story. The kind of story that doesn't get told enough. The kind most women are actively trying to hide.

I showed her the image on the back of my camera.

She was quiet for a second.

Then she said, "Wait. That's me!?"

This is that photo, used with full permission.

The Problem was Never Really the Stretch Marks

It was Postpartum Body Image

This is not a "before." There is no after. This is not a body that needs fixing or a story that needs a redemption arc.

This is just a woman's body, photographed with intention and respect, and lit in a way that shows you exactly what it is: evidence of something extraordinary.

Postpartum body image is one of the most searched, most struggled-with topics among women right now, and I think it's because the conversation keeps starting in the wrong place. We frame it as a problem to solve instead of a story to understand. Most of us have spent so long looking at our bodies through the lens of what's wrong with them that we genuinely can't see them any other way. We're not reacting to our stretch marks. We're reacting to everything we've been told stretch marks mean. That you've "let yourself go." That your body belongs to before, and this body (the one you're actually living in right now) is somehow the consolation prize.

That's the lie.

And it runs deep.

High Functioning on the Outside. Quietly Disappearing on the Inside.

The women I photograph who struggle the most with being in front of the camera aren't the ones who lack confidence in every area of life. They're usually the opposite. They're the ones holding everything together. The ones nobody would ever describe as insecure. The ones who are absolutely crushing it professionally and personally and still can't stand a candid photo of themselves.

These are often the women everyone else depends on. The women praised for being capable, composed, and endlessly productive while privately struggling to recognize themselves in a photograph.

High functioning on the outside.

Quietly disappearing from themselves on the inside.

Sound familiar?

I see it constantly. The woman who is always the one taking the picture. Who has a hundred photos of her kids and almost none with them. The woman who crops herself out. Who avoids group photos. Who says "take one without me" without even thinking about it anymore. Who keeps saying she'll do the thing (the session, the photoshoot, the whatever) once she loses the weight, once she "gets back to herself," once she looks like she used to.

Meanwhile, life is happening. Right now. In this body.

You Deserve to Be in the Picture

I'm not here to tell you to love your body. That's a lot to ask, and honestly, I think it's the wrong starting point. You don't have to love every single thing about yourself to deserve to be seen.

What I've watched happen in my studio, over and over again, is something smaller and more real than that. It's a woman seeing herself. Really seeing herself. Maybe for the first time in a really long time. And realizing she didn't disappear. She was just waiting for someone to look.

Not with judgment. Not with critique. Just with care.

The client with the stretch marks? She ended up with one of the most stunning images I've ever taken. She bought the whole collection. She cried during her reveal. Not because she looked "better than she expected." Because she finally saw what had been there the whole time.

Her body wasn't the problem. The story she'd been telling herself about it was.

If you've been waiting until you feel ready, until you look "like yourself again," until the timing is right, I want you to hear this:

You don't have to earn the right to exist in photographs.

You don't have to become someone else before you deserve to be remembered.

Your kids aren't going to look back at photos of you and count your stretch marks. They're going to look for your face.

Be in the picture.

Nicole Griffin is the founder and photographer behind Nicole Griffin Photography, a luxury boudoir studio based in Baltimore, Maryland, serving women across Washington DC, Maryland, Northern Virginia, and Baltimore. Known for her confidence-centered approach, she is a two-time Coterie Noir Top Black Boudoir Photographer, AIBP Best of Boudoir 2025 honoree, and PPA International Photographic Competition Gold and Bronze medalist. She believes one thing above all else: you are the standard.

Learn more at https://nicolegriffinphotography.com