The 2026 IAPBP (International Association of Professional Birth Photographers) Image Competition is officially live and taking submissions until an extended date today Thursday January 29, 2026! If you aren’t a member yet, it’s not too late to join and submit your best work from births in 2025! Members do have discounted pricing making it worth it to join!
I have been submitting my images to the international Association of professional Birth photographers for years now.
I started out as a Birth Photographer in South Florida my very first hospital birth at Memorial West Hospital in Pembroke Pines on August 31, 2014. To be honest with you, I did it kind of backwards, where I went to the Birth without having any experience or training with being a Birth Photographer whatsoever. Technically I didn’t go to this birth in a photographer role! A maternity photo shoot model of mine was in labor, and we became friends, and I came to support her in labor (I was also super curious what birth in a positive, supported environment with a great birth team even looked like because I was considering expanding my own family but I was scared, my first birth had been really scary and uninformed) and my friend was happy with me being there. I figured I’d bring my camera so that once her baby boy was born, I could take some newborn photos of him in her hospital room kind of like a Fresh 48 Photo Session.
But her labor actually ended up being a little slow paced when I first arrived, and I started capturing photos of her and the details the color of her nails, and I kinda learned on the go.
I definitely don’t recommend jumping in this way for your first birth as a birth photographer! Now that the industry of Birth Photography has grown over the last decade, you want to set your client or model’s expectations accordingly that you are coming in having at the very least gone through training or education beforehand, so you won’t be surprised nor caught off guard by anything that comes your way.
There are so many wonderful ways of getting started in earth photography in 2026, Birth Becomes You offers fantastic education courses for Birth Photographers, along with The Beauty in Birth that teaches you everything you need to know so that when you arrive, you’re able to assure your client that you will capture worthwhile images that are professionally crafted, instead of novice photos.
Taking a physiological birthing education class is also vital so you really understand the process of childbirth and know what stage of labor your client is in. I like the childbirth classes with Zully at Boca Midwifery and there are so many childbirth classes in south Florida from the Orchid Nest, offered at hospitals like Boca Regional, and many more even with doula organizations.
Vanessa Brown even offers Birth Photography Workshops and Mentorship and you can find mentors everywhere these days even virtually.
Now I was really lucky because that very first birth I attended as a birth photographer happened during the daytime and was pretty straight forward physiologically, so with 7 years of professional photography experience at the time back in 2014 under my belt and great lighting and a pretty easy delivery, I got pretty lucky and my photos were wonderful! But there’s a bunch of things that I wish that I could’ve done differently if I had the proper education and training before that birth, even though my client is super happy with her photos because she wasn’t expecting them to begin with and I’m super grateful that I was able to get into Birth photography coincidentally, I definitely recommend that if Birth Photography interest you that you are far more intentional with your approach than I was when I stumbled into this field almost 12 years ago.
Now 2020 was the roughest year of my career for me. I was not able to attend any of my South Florida hospital births with midwives nor obgyns, and my clients birthing in hospitals who lost their birth teams had such a hard time, it was emotionally devastating. It was during this time I really uncovered my passion and love for advocating for women in pregnancy and childbirth. I missed my hospital births, I really did. I love my home births, and they are some of my absolute favorite, liberating and invigorating artistically and emotionally, but my hospital births also hold a very special space in my heart. My connection with my clients has been deep within my heart for nearly 12 years, this August 2026 will be my 12th year as a birth photographer. So not being able to be part of any of their births in 2020 was incredibly rough. I do feel I was really heart broken.
I continued to pour my heart and love into birth stories every opportunity I got from then until the start of 2025, but when 2025 started, I turned some sort of new corner of my life’s journey. My father became very ill with stage 4 cancer, and so much of my focus and time became solely dedicated to supporting him.
During the last year of his life, I would get these tiny moments at Birth‘s where I disconnected from reality and was in a creative space that also happened to be a portal. It’s wild to look at the result of my 2025 Birth compared to everything I have captured During my career because there is such a psychological/emotional/spiritual component to all the photos that I captured in 2025, I went through all of my births from 2025 when I was picking my favorite photos and it was instantly clear which ones I should submit For this year‘s image competition, I’ve never had that experience before because I always struggled to try to figure out which photos to submit. I was never sure which of my photos the world would consider worthy of an award yet somehow this year I instantly knew that it was exactly the six photos. I don’t think I even asked myself what photos the world wants to see. I just asked myself which of my photos am I truly proud of that are award-winning and that is how I chose these, when it came to naming them, I can’t even tell you how I’ve agonized over the years on how to name my images Yet the names for all of these flowed straight from my heart without absolutely any difficulty whatsoever as if they had already been named to begin with color, me surprised, but I really think that 2025 was more than just attending births where they were portals for women, they really did something to me emotionally and spiritually I think that people say that in death you relearn so much about yourself and I think that I finally understand that I don’t wish it upon anyone, but it was part of my journey, losing my father who passed away October 22 and any of you who know me super well will know What the 22nd means to me so many of my clients babies have been born on the 22nd, so I honestly can’t believe that that is the day that my dad chose to leave this earthly plane. I hope you find something lovely in my work that I’ve submitted that speaks to you And helps you too find your own path. I’d absolutely love your feedback on what you think of my photos I’m very passionate about receiving feedback from others and have an open heart always for that so I welcome you to leave a comment for me below and if you Have your own photos that you submitted, please link me below so that I can see what you have submitted I literally cannot wait.
Catalyst For Change (VBA2C) It is the women who, despite being doubted by society, who continue to persevere, who are the fire starters, who bring about real change, real opportunities for all those who follow to birth the way they want. After two c-sections, she built a team that did not doubt that she could, and vbac after two c-sections she absolutely did.
Hold Me Tight Forever (Baby 5) They've done this not once, not twice, but four times before. And despite going through the intensity of labor with four daughters, she continued to push through with the intense pangs of labor with their fifth daughter, while being held yet again and forever in the arms of the man she's trusted to hold her all these years.
I Choose You - Due to medical risks, she was unable to have an epidural, and for this reason, she built a birth team that would support her birth plan, to labor and birth unmedicated and who would especially be there in moments of doubt, and when labor got to be way too intense, she stepped into her power as a first time birthing mother and said to her unborn son “I Choose You” and birthed him despite the physical intensity that overwhelmed her, and she’ll continue choosing him every single day.
Purposefully Present - She could have chosen anywhere to give birth and anyone she wanted to be part of her birth team, and these are the people she chose, her mother, watching over her from a quiet distance, her husband, keeping his hands on her body and their unborn son in every moment, her doula, providing reassurance through every wave and every breath, her daughter unseen in her stillness behind the door, waiting to meet her baby brother and watch her powerful mother birth, and her birth photographer, who became a soul sister through their journey woven together. And each birth team member was purposefully present, chosen intentionally.
She Is Divine - Every now and then as birth workers we enter a birth space with a woman who reminds us why we started out being birth workers, whether doulas, midwives, birth photographers. She steps into a deeper level of her divine feminine, we witness her travel to the other plane to collect her baby and return with him earthside. We breathe and we remember, this is why we are birth workers, birth keepers, a sacred sisterhood.
She Rushed So Much, She Flew- This birth story is a core reminder that birth belongs to women and their babies. Despite this medical facility not permitting water birth, this baby chose to be born in water. This third time mama arrived to the hospital in active labor, her doula inflated her birthing tub, and mama peacefully labored in it with her husband, doula and birth photographer at her side. Her midwife and labor nurse had stepped out, as even active labor can continue for hours. And suddenly something changed. Baby girl rushed so much, she flew out into mamas hands before anyone even realized it was time for her arrival.
Thank all the incredible Birth workers who made these moments completely possible for me in 2025, the birth doulas here in South Florida, the amazing Midwives and OBGYNs, the labor and delivering nurses, especially at Baptist Health Boca Regional Hospital, as well as my husband & my family.
I wouldn’t have been able to capture any of these moments if you didn’t believe in me.
Thank you for welcoming me in these birthing spaces.
Above all, thank you for the love of my clients for which I am eternally grateful to have my career! I would not exist without you.
For the 6 images I submitted into the 2026 IAPBP Birth Photographers Image Competition: Thank you to my first time mom, my third time moms and my fifth time mom for allowing me to be in your Birth space and capture your journey to this baby. Thank you to the Midwives at Boca Midwifery for being an amazing support to my hospital Birth clients thank you to the doulas at the Orchid Nest and Coastal doulas for never giving up on supporting my clients through their journeys.
All the love in my heart to all of you and I cannot wait to see what 2026 has in store for all of us!
Past birth photography image competitions have been entered by birth photographers from every state in the country, and even from all over the world and featured on today.com and covered by news articles from publication such as mymodernmet.com, winners of the Birth photography contests winning birth photos would become viral even.
2025 Last year‘s winners included Anna Garvey, Sara Hunter, Dana Jacobs, Sanne van Schaik, Colleen Murtha.
Boredpanda.com, mumsatthetable.com, Huffington Post, (huffpost), fstoppers.com, romper, sheknows.com and ABC News and so many other news outlets are stepping up to be the first to report on the winners of the image competition.
I wonder how far will the 2026 competition reach and who the winners of the 2026 Birth photography awards winners will be.
Not to mention how much you’re able to truly learn from these competitions, while it can be at first a little bit discouraging to not win an award it’s incredibly important to walk away with the correct frame of mind which is what did you learn from this year‘s image competition did you pay attention to why the winners won? Is there something lacking in your work, are you just photographing for the sake of earning a quick box or are you trying to drop expectations and photograph using your creativity working with the lighting?
Make sure that you are entering this competition, not just to win an award, but to truly learn how much you’ve grown and what can you do to improve not for the competition but for yourself and for your clients over the next 12 months, perhaps it’s taking a photography class or a workshop from a Birth Photographer perhaps it’s going back and re-editing some of your past birth after taking a birth photography class. There’s so much to learn about yourself and ultimately this journey has nothing to do with anybody else, including not the winners not the big names in Birth photography. It has only to do with. What did you take out of your journey in the past 12 months as a Birth Photographer and as a human Because this is so much greater than just an image competition it’s our journey that is so so intimate in life.
