A mother of four, photographer, nature lover. Someone trying to make sense of it all, through photos and stories. 

I try to be free in all senses of the word, so I made the leap and now work with what I love doing; taking pictures, storing this life in moments, both for myself and for clients. My heart is in photographing birth and motherhood, but I take on just about any photography job. 
(See my birth photos at www.birth.no and the rest of my work portfolio at www.mariavatne.no.)

I live on a farm in Norway with my man Nik and my children Ronja, Freja, Falk and Ulv, plus a bunch of animals. We grow our own food as far as the seasons allow it, we don't go to kindergarten, the three youngest ones will be homeschooled.

We govern our own lives, we strive for independence, we want to be in this life wild and free and full of love.

Weekend breakfasts & hardcore missions.

Ain't no better start to the day than with eggs from your own chickens!
Hope everyone's had a good weekend - we have! In a busy sort of way... Saturday evening was spent on a kamikaze mission to Ikea, to buy our new kitchen and bathroom furniture. This in itself is a pretty exhausting and stressful task (it's A LOT of stuff to buy), but for us Paynes it just wasn't a big enough challenge. To make it really crazy, we chose to do it just before closing time. I think we set a new world record, because we did it in 40 minutes!
I think I'm still a little traumatised by it.
Good then, to have real wholesome food onboard.
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Like a punch in the stomach.