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.

Last winter.

The weather forecast says that the first snow will come tonight, and I think it's right, because there has been tiny snowflakes flying about since this morning, and the hills have got white spots on them. So winter is coming, then. I guess it was inevitable. 

Last winter was both very hard and very magical. It was our first in this house, which was great, but there was still a lot of work to be done in it, so we were living in chaos. Boxes and stuff in all the rooms upstairs, moving around from one room to the next as we were gradually fixing them, one by one. It was an exhausting but also amazing process.

I was pregnant, which of course was exciting and wonderful, but I was struggling with leg, hip and pelvic pains, so being at work was hard, and I felt very limited all the time. Lucky me to have patient girls and a hard working husband.

Our friend

Kimm

 came over one day in early January, and took some pictures of us. We only had three weeks or so before we would be a family of five, so it was really cool to have us documented like this, at that special time. I'll share one of them with you now, as a little gesture towards the winter coming up.

May it bring us magic and wonder this time around, too. 

maria-familieskisse-3660

Everyone should have a Billie.

Aurora.