Ginette-Adv Research Methods: JENNIFER LOOMIS

Jennifer Loomis - photographer

Jennifer Loomis is a fine art photographer in the subject of pregnant women. She has written a book called ‘Portraits of pregnancy’.

Loomis’ background is as an international photojournalist working in some of the most difficult war-torn places in the world such as Rwanda where she covered the aftermath of the genocide there. In an interview with Kuow, she spoke in detail about how terrible it was seeing all the people suffer. That was in the late 1990s.

Going back to the early 1990s Lomas used to photograph naked women as more of a hobby and an escape from her photojournalism job. One day a pregnant friend came to her and asked to be photographed. She had never seen a pregnant body and was amazed with the beautiful curves. This first encounter with a pregnant belly transfixed her. She went back to her photojournalistic job and mentioned to her photographer friends that she might switch to pregnant women for which there was no genre in those days. They talked her out of it saying that she would never earn a living.

Then after being in Ruanda she decided to give the maternity photography a go. She says that with her background she can bring the larger story to a single image – even in pregnant women. At that time Annie Leibowitz was being asked to continually take pregnancy photographs as an aftermath of the Demi Moore shot. She passed all these women onto Loomis.

Loomis finds the shape of the belly unique and loves the way light falls on it. She would ask herself ‘where is this shape in the galleries’? This beautiful shape really had not been seen in the art world and she felt that she wanted to document it.

Loomis considers pregnant women her art form. She brings emotion and narrative to her photographs. Interestingly when she decided to market herself she placed an ad in a maternity magazine but was rung by the magazine whose publishers said that they couldn’t publish that type of photograph. It was far too risqué. This was only 10 years ago. She was shocked. She changed the image to one in which the model was more covered up and still is very careful when using her images in magazines.

Loomis’ book ‘Portraits of pregnancy’ documents 50 women. Quotations and stories, told by Hugo Kugiya , accompany the images. Loomis works in Seattle.