Mother's Love

This is just sooooooooo beautiful! you can feel the love – so precious…

This is such a beautiful portrait of mother and child – just stunning!

Incredibly moving! A stunningly intimate portrait.

Nice capture… I like the natural expressions on the face of the mother… Good job !!!

G’day Rebecca,
You have successfully captured this moment of contented bliss and motherly love in a most pleasing and emotive way.
I do feel though that this image really needs some judicious cropping and a bit of Clone Stamp work in Photoshop to take full advantage of the hidden impact it contains.
I believe the bright “wheels” on our left to be very distracting by their shape and colour, taking the eye away from the mother’s face and the bright tourquoise towel in the background to also be distracting, taking the eye away from the baby.
I think the best solution to that would be a much tighter crop in the portrait format which would eliminate most of the distractions and add much more impact and concentration on the baby and the mother’s expression.
My thoughts are to crop right into the brown and black pattern near the mother’s neck and about 1cm out from the baby’s head.
After cropping, I then suggest what is left of the towel be eliminated with the Clone Stamp.
(Remember this is just one man’s opinion kiddo. 8-) )
The lighting and exposure are excellent, the depth of field gives a lovely clarity right through the subject and your nice sharp focus gives us exquisite detail on the mother and child.
The colours are rich, warm and natural, there is good colour contrast and light/shadow contrast and the tonality is lovely. The rendition of the skin tones is exceptionally well done.
Add to all this a great big “X” Factor and you certainly have a winner here m’girl.
God bless you and yours,
Dennis

Damn good capture. Well done. Love it.

What an absolutly glorious depiction of motherhood…..it brings back so many memories of my first child! A very powerfull and emotional peice! Beautifull Rebecca!

Thanks Jay, Mark and Penny. Being new in RB I was a little nervous about getting comments but your comments have been very encouraging. Thanks also to Dennis, good to have suggestions. I would not have thought of it otherwise. I still need to learn about cropping, photoshop etc. What is Clone stamp by the way? Sorry for being totally clueless ;-) thanks again

Don’t worry I’ll teach you all that stuff!

By the way, where was I when this was taken?? Must’ve been in another ward. You Doctors always get the best shots! :-)

Stunning work Rebecca
xkc

lovely photo, full of emotion.

This is really catchy and amazing..

Aren’t that prem baby supposed to be admitted to SCN/kept in incubator?

This is such a beautiful image – you have captured perfectly the bond between mother and child. Very powerful and moving. Excellent!

Love the emotion…... just a note to Wan Teh…. this is Africa mate!

Hi Rebbecca, capturing the moment (and all that is in that moment) is photography in my opinion, cropping and clone stamping is graphic design… which is what I do… the way photographers talk completely confuses me… but I take great photos with a digital camera, I know how to trick people better is all… I find these unprocessed ‘snaps’ and ‘captures’ to be the reality I need to immerse myself in the energy OF the moment, if people processed every photo to ‘enhance’ or ‘embellish’ then you are only seeing what they see, which is what you see, which was what that person saw… or something? this is the bare face of love in a place that people can’t possibly comprehend. I can’t. Never been there, and even if I had I’ve not lived it… But I try to understand and be compassionate and to do that I need to feel like I am in their shoes. By capturing this and leaving it ‘raw’ you’ve brought the reality to me. Don’t apologise for not knowing how to graphic your photos. That is how it was (a la photojournalism, I certainly wouldn’t like to know that media alter their photographs before they his the newsstands but you can bet your life it happens, man it’s so easy now even I can do it)... I’m raving. Are you a doctor? Cause if you are I so completely think that that adds a really powerful depth to this photograph (my hubby is a pharmacist and he has it tough, can’t image the stress and confrontation you must deal with day to day). see one image and a bit of banter between friends and you already have a ton of my respect and thoughts. What a life we have :-)

absolutely beautiful, you must be so proud of this shot

Hi kathleen, Thanks for the comment. It is true I was trying to capture exactly how I saw it then, the face, the quite baby, the colour, the unspoken gratitude that her baby was with her and alive. What I love about this photo was that it showed how fragile and small this baby was and how easily the outcome could have been different (in the land of africa). But all the she needs was the quite strength of her mother’s love. I am becoming poetic. In someway, I like to have a better quality shots, but I would not change the emotion and the bare feeling that was portrayed by my two lovely subjects. Thanks again, it is just so many ways to look at one thing, is it not? Yes, I am a doctor (actually I am an obstetrician) so obviously this is very close to my heart. I wish i could take pictures of all the babies I delivered. I was in africa recently as a volunteer. It was such a privilaged to be there.
Thanks also to Jessica, Mugsy, karen, hugo and deborah. I am so glad you like it.
Also welcome Wan…..Yeah….it is africa ;-)

Great image rebecca-you captured the moment and that’s the most important thing!!!! Sometimes the moment IS the most important thing and cropping or any other adjustment is dishonouring the subject or the intention behind making the image. The only thing I can suggest in this case would be to try a B&W version if you want the viewer to concentrate more on the face of the mother and the baby-but then again the colours and vibrancy of the clothing worn by women in Africa is a defining aspect of their culture and in the case of your photo I think it helps the viewer realise this could only ever have been taken in Africa….
Like I said, great image…. with a great story behind it no doubt.

what a beautifull moment

brilliantly captured.

Hi Rebecca,
In terms of capturing the moment… what a beautiful shot! I am sure this mother will look back on this photograph with a heart full of love and happiness. If she does not have the photograph – no matter, the moment is indelibly etched into her memory.

What a beautiful shot!

The emotion goes through the screen…
i agree with the ideas , B/W, cropping and so on.. but this an unforgettable photo.

Life is the ultimate art. This is fabulous.

Don’t clone it! As a news photographer, I think the integrity of this shot lies in its reality. As someone else said, cloning, etc., is graphic design. This is a photo worthy of National Geographic, but not if you significantly change it.

In my line of work, we don’t alter the reality of a news shot, and a news shot is really just a photo you can love and trust because it shows something real. I do illustrations, also, and those I can play with. But a photo like this—to remove something or add something blemishes its truth.

Cropping, of course, is always OK. This would be all right with a tighter focus. But I don’t think you’ve done badly.

I offer this picture my highest praise. Yes, I’m a nobody, but I can recognize truth and talent when I see them.

Well done.

Just want to add my admiration to all of the above comments. Lovely work.

such great emotion, love this photo

A wonderfully powerful capture. (Don’t change a thing.)

Thank you to share this momennt with us.
Very good capture

Such a privilege to have been a part of such a special moment Rebecca.

A Beautiful, timeless image…..

Rebecca, this image is so honest, and is infused with such real emotion that it has brought tears to my eyes. What a wonderful photograph.

Thanks everybody for all the comments and I am blown away at how this photograph speaks to you all. Thanks for sharing your comments with me.

I keep coming back to this pic because it has touched me so deeply…i want to know more..but of what i don’t know…i find it painful and hope filled and over dosing with love all at the same time…which i have to say for me is the epitome of motherhood.

What a beautiful capture, so very emotive, it is so compelling! The look that you have captured on the mothers face is one of pure love & happiness. Well done!

Its all be said above very eloquently…thank you for moving me so very deeply:)))

Sublime…

Africa – seeing your eexquisite shot I get quite homesick. The uncomplicated maternal love, the colours and emotions. What a fantastic memory.

Beautifully photographed Rebecca… you have certainly captured the emotion :)

breathtaking sweetness and kindness

very pawerful!!!!

this is one of the best portraits i’ve ever seen. you have captured emotion and those real moments of life that define universal themes of humanity. congrats.

Oh wow! What a moment.

Unicef is selling cards for a good course.
This is just one of those who would sell very well.

What a beautyfull photo. Realy emotional to…

I don’t often feel compelled to forward emails of RB pics to my friends, but Rebecca this image was a must – just a magic moment captured so well! ...congrats, Paul

Wow, so many comments. Thank you.

OMG this is beautiful I love this….I am in awe. What a beautiful image of beauty, love and the gift of a child. This is one of my favorits on Red Bubble.

Rebecca, I wish this came in a picture size cause I would love to hang this on my wall.

Well I bought it I couldn’t pass this up. lol It will make a beautiful mother’s day card. But I will keep this one for me. hehehe I wish it could be resized too but I will cherrish the card just the same. I see some more of yours that I plan on getting when I have the money I kinda went over my limit. lol I will have a house full of beautiful pictures :)

Absolutely wonderful,congratulations Rebbeca.Timing is perfect.

I honestly, deeply believe you should write something up to go with your images and submit it as a photo essay to something wonderful like National Geographic. I would be honorede to edit the written part, if you wanted … that’s what I do, you know. Anyway, you are in such a perfect position to do something like that, and as a journalist, I wanted to strongly encourage you to give it a try.

WoW! Rebecca this is really awesome, you can feel them, so beautiful tiny baby, you can realize the beginning of life here! The baby’s arm is almost the size of the mother’s thumb!!! So tiny but perfect at the same time, wonderfully perfect and the mum expression… wow!! you can feel her love and her grattitude, her happiness of having her in her hands and close to her face, smelling her master creation: her daughter!!!
I have four kids but I haven’t any amazing photo like this one!!! If I have my fifth, for sure I take a photo like this one, hehe, sorry if I will get your idea but I find it totally awesome and inspirational!!! I read all the comments as well, great, but don’t worry if someone tell you ohhh you must do this or that, is only their opinions but everybody loves your magical photgraph!! You can entry in http://poty2007.dcmag.co.uk/ for the competition of the best in 2007, very good prize
15,000 punds!!! mmmm… You can win!! all the best for you. M

this is such an amazing shot! so emotional, its beautiful. this is the type of work i’d like to do in the future, i really admire your stuff.

Thanks everybody. I will check out the site you mentioned monalisa.
Jen, I will think about this. i am not a writer really. May be I can combine effort with Melinda Kerr. Both of us, went to Congo and Rwanda together and she is a copywriter. Will keep you posted.

Simply amazing Rebecca. What a beautiful cpature

Rebecca I finally recieved the card of this beautiful picture. I am very happppy it is just so beautiful. If everyone thinks this is a amazing picture they should see it in person. I am just in awe of this beautiful picture. I think I will keep this card until someone special I believe deserves a card this special.

Please with due respect put your copyright on your work. I have seen where so many times people have stolen other artist’s hard work on the internet. And they have made money off of other people’s work. Sure your work is copyrighted but not everyone knows it. So please for your own protection add your copyright to all of your work.

thank you so much Ronni. I shall look into copyrighting the photo. may be I should get the card myself to see.

Oh yes you should get the card yourself so you can see how beautiful and professional it looks. I am so impressed with Red Bubble and is unbeliveable how professional the graphics are. I’m going to order some of my own prints too. I can’t wait to see what my own prints look like.

oh yeah I forgot to say the card is a very nice size also. How many have you sold of this picture? If you don’t mind me asking that is. You should do very well with a lot of your photos. What I love most of all about your photos is there is a message you are getting out across the world. And you do it with class and show the beauty of each photo.

Rebecca, I just read some of the comments from other members.

Please by all means buy the card. What I have in my hands right now is excellent just beautiful. Red Bubble tones down what colors it needs to. I would not crop it trust me you don’t even need to change anything. Please before you decide get this one for yourself and look at the finish product. You don’t even notice the background. And her clothes does not distract you (me). What I like about the woman’s clothes is it has clock designs. Think about what also this photo can represent. In time this child will be an adult and have the unconditonal love from it’s mother. The dress is just perfect for this type of photo.

to me, the beauty of photography (for all my touting of Photoshop) is that sometimes reality is best.

We like the unusual nuances of life, and the information it gives us. As someone said (re BW version), the colour tells us about the people-and I’m talking about the bright blue walls, not their skin.

the objects in the background aren’t in foucs, or detracting from the image-so if you do decide to go BW, or even with the more bronze look on Melinda’s page, don’t select an area-do it uniformly, because it doesn’t look natural to have distinct colour change.

I’d add that cropping this image makes the composition forced. the orginal photo and composition is lovely, natural, taken as seen.

Remember, in essence, what we love about this photo is the bond between mother and child. She is closing her eyes, fully embracing the moment and allows us the priveledge to gaze while she does. She is full of joy. Life is full of colour. Sadness is better left for the ‘reportage’ type of doco photo which laments the state of things-not for the joys that this woman is experiencing.

er, I meant black and white doco photo’s…they are a bit more grim.

hey beautiful picture great wrk =)

its a precious moment, beautifully captured

Really amazing image. It carrie so much feeling. Very cool

Amazing indeed..what a feeling..Love it!best regards

Love it Love it Love it. Africa is a most wonderful place hope you learnt alot from your experiences like I did.

Again, A Beautiful Image, Unforgettable !!

A stunning image, beautiful capture of emotion and tenderness of a mother. She is simply in love with her tiny beautiful baby! I do find the towel a slight distraction, however the emotion in the childs and mothers faces keeps my eye from wandering. I think the womans shirt/dress fabric pattern adds to the reality of the image and gives it placement in the world. Meaning i immediatly recognise it as being african. The colours are perfect with the yellow and the blue being opposing colours so they balance each other.

like i have said previously, a stunning image, and captured in the beauty of the eye of the beholder. Thankyou for sharing it with us, it made me smile :-)

Thanks nsoup. Really appreciate your comment.

Absolutely breathtaking shot ….

Beautiful and evocative

excellent moment, very emotion, well done Rebecca

What a beautiful moment. This is bursting emotion, Great \work.

Great moment….very strong message…..
Absolutely love this photo…..Well done Bec :)

Great capture! Fantastic!

Thanks everyone for the comment. really appreciated.

Beautiful, full of love.

What an intense moment, beautiful color and just fabulous shot. Great Job!

An instant of complete perfection!

wonderful!!!!!!

Wonderful capture full of emotion, superb.

Just beautiful, i like this shot!

Breathtaking!

A fantastic, fantastic image! delivering great emotion, and a sense of wonderment. A capture to be proud of!

Captured emotion. Just beautiful.

She reminds of a woman I love and admire much. The love resounds. Beautiful!!

Fantastic portrait of life.

the look on her face… priceless!!!! you’ve captured something very special here, rebecca – no more to be said!

Great shot!

This shot truly encapsulates the joy of love, GREAT picture!

Superb! Superb capture. Congratulations Rebecca.

Moving, touching, marvellous and powerful! One word….OUTSTANDING!

oh wow!! this is glorious. you should post it up in LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED group, Larry would love this for his group..
it has so much emotion to it.

aw. beautiful. I love this.

how absolutely PERFECT- the emotion the subject everything-

Wow, this is such a wonderfully moving photograph, it draws you in so completely.

indescribable.

The most Amazing Shot … One you just can’t stop looking at I I would imagine I will keep coming back to look at it again and again …. Don’t touch a thing on it … Photo Shop is an amazing program as we all know … But some pictures should be left alone and this is one of them… Perfect and Beautiful.

Love for ever…..gorgeous and precious shot:))

Awww, this is beautiful!!!

Good Lord! He/She is so tiny! <3>

No doubt, this is a very special image. I’m glad to have come accross it. Bravo.

full of emotion.

How tender and loving is the expression!!

• THIS IS CLOSE TO MY HEART, AS I WORK WITH THE EXTREME POOR IN ISOLATED VILLAGES IN UGANDA, SOUTH INDIA AND NIGERIA.

Your work is blessed by God. *PSALM 41:1-3.

Please vsist Charity mission website:
http://www.philadelphia33.org/

Link to my Photographs.
http://www.redbubble.com/people/joshuatree1

this really is exquisite work !!

This is one of the most wonderful photos I have ever seen.
It is completely stunning.
Amazing.
x Han

How precious!
This photo simply holds so much emotion.
Brilliantly done.
God bless.
Megan

This is amazing!

Awe inspiring image. As a mother can’t help but be touched by this image. I can feel her pride and sheer bliss and contentment :)

yes I remember the day my first born came into this world, the moment was just like above and when my second son came into this world it was completely equally as precious….and 21 and 18 years on…I still remember that precious wonderful feelilng..fantastic complete capture of the moment…feeling that nothing come close to that joy…to this date nothing has.

wow… stunning portrait…very moving

You have beautiful images, you have captored love and emotion, happiness and sadness.

this is so amazing! fabulous capture!!!

Nice capture…

Lots of suggestion for a photo that stands well on its own, untouched. The emotion in this capture is palpable and perfect because the photo demonstrates a raw emotion – “fixing it” would take away from the sense of that split second of raw, unabashed emotion.

This is sooo beautiful! I have to agree that a portrait crop to focus on the mother and baby would add to the impact ..but stands well as it is obviously.

This is awesome as a card and also a matted print with the black matte…an instant favorite…such a tiny baby and so much emotion…you have captured it all Rebecca…congratulations!!!!

Probably one of the most beautiful images I have seen!

Beautiful shot, lovely

Absolutely precious. Wow!

Gorgeous image! Please consider adding this to Love Love Love

There are very few images that cause me to feel such powerful gut emotion. When I first saw it all I could do was cry. Absolutely stunning! Thank you for sharing this with us.

This is Amazing.. I’ve been searching for an un-fabricated picture of a mother with an infant. When I clicked on this picture, I could instantly feel the pain of just giving birth, being replaced with the feeling of pure bliss and humility, with the touch and the smell of your infant in your hands. The tears that well up in your eyes. You shake your head in amazment. “this is what it’s like”. You breathe deeper and harder than you ever had. Could my lungs take any more air in? You kiss their skin and wash them in your tears. “I love you my baby”.
Great shot. Great shot…wow.