[favorites] Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project 2015 | Northern Virginia Breastfeeding Photographer

Welcome back! Hopefully by now you’ve had a chance to check out this post, which contains inspiring stories from some of the mamas who participated in the 2015 Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project. If you haven’t, I hope you will. As a Northern Virginia breastfeeding photographer (and a photographer who breastfeeds) it is so important to me to get their stories out to the public. Some of them are of loss and struggles, some are of luck and contentment. All are of hope and perseverance.

So far, one of my shots of Jill DeLorenzo inside her church has made it to the Huffington Post and the Daily Mail, among others (eek!!). You might remember her from the nurse in I photographed or because she has been a pioneer for a woman’s right to breastfeed in public. I first met her last year when I photographed her for the 2014 project, as she had just come home with a newborn and was tandem nursing him and her toddler.

Below are my favorite shots from each session I did this year. The #PBAP2015 took me all over the Washington DC-metro area, from a creek in Loudoun County to the farmer’s market in Old Town Alexandria to the Supreme Court in Washington DC. I noticed this year that more moms shared their photos online, either from my page or directly using the copies I shared with them, versus last year. That speaks volumes about the impact the Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project has had on how we view the idea of breastfeeding in public…and being photographed doing it! Everyone seemed just a little more confident. This is normal. I always said that I think passersby notice me before they notice the mom I’m with, and that was certainly true this year. One mom and I even got photobombed by someone giving us a big thumbs up!