Why are new moms keen to get professionally photographed when they breastfeed? Anamika Singh’s passion project is as much about empowerment as it is about normalising the act
Pastry chef Shikha Tanna
It was in 2019 that Anamika Singh realised she’d like to focus on capturing mothers as the subject of her photographs. When a skin care brand approached her to shoot a campaign that required her to follow mothers before, during and after birth, she found herself closer to her calling. As she found herself in a OT, watching a baby born, she knew this was special. “I had been pursuing documentary-style photography, and this… well, what’s more special than documenting the beginning of a new life,” says Singh, 40, a resident of Thane. The chemical engineer, who grew up in Patna, taught herself photography when she quit her job in 2011 to take care of her son.
Zumba and fitness instructor Sucheta Pal
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What she didn’t know then was that her pictures, which garnered attention on social media, would encourage women to get in touch. “On the side of the campaign, I was taking pictures of breastfeeding mothers. And women who saw these, wanted to have me click them too.” While some do it to capture the memory of a phase in their life, others are addressing their demons through the picture. “One mother, who was actually my first client, had been body shamed all her life, as she was on the heavier side. For her, getting shot was an act of embracing her body, in all its motherly glory,” she says of the aesthetic black and white frame of pastry chef Shikha Tanna. Singh used a splay of light to highlight Tanna’s curves. “It’s also about embracing the power that breastfeeding gives them. They want to normalise it. One mother took me to the powder room in a public space, where she was breastfeeding, and I shot her there.” Another picture of Zumba instructor and fitness expert Sucheta Pal with her infant, sees her flash the classic rock and roll salute.
Anamika Singh
Singh’s pictures are part of a larger effort by women to normalise breastfeeding. In India, celebrities like Neha Dhupia have spoken about the problems that arise from hiding a natural act of sustaining your child. Dhupia had said, once during a shoot, she was forced to hide behind a tree to breastfeed daughter Mehr. The government’s most recent effort to support has been to launch MAA, a breastfeeding awareness campaign, and Jan Andolan under the Poshan Abhiyan, which also questions the promotion of formula milk for babies.
During shoots, Singh follows a few rules, including trying to conceal the baby’s face (“some mothers are superstitious”), and leaving the mother to decide how comfortable she is to show her body. Singh says, “It’s best if the picture is as natural as the act itself.”
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