Photography by Valentina

Photography by Valentina Beautiful and Timeless Newborn and Maternity photography. "Because they won't be this little for long". London based (Twickenham) No frills, just emotions.

Authentic and simple images of your little baby.

08/09/2026

This summer, during those hot days, I tried cyanotype printing for the first time. Cyanotype is an old photographic printing process that makes a distinct, rich blue images.

Mixing the liquid, painting it onto paper, printing negatives onto transparency, adding flowers, leaving it in the sun, then rinsing to see what came out.

Looking back, I probably should have started with something simple, just flowers, before adding a photo overlay into the mix. I didn’t. I went straight for the complicated version.

But I think I learned more that way. Quantity of liquid, which photos actually print through, how long to leave it in the sun. All of it, in one go.

Afterwards I went for the classic leaf, more photos, and tried printing on textile too, which went really well. I really enjoyed it.

What I didn’t expect was how calming the whole process would be. Mixing, painting, waiting for the sun to do its work, rinsing to see what’s underneath.

It’s slow in a way most of my work isn’t, and genuinely satisfying. Now that the sun is a bit rarer, I might consider buying a UV light to keep experimenting, as I’m craving to bring more slowness into my life.

Where could you use a bit more slowness right now?

25/08/2026

She hadn’t been in front of a camera in years.

Then she saw the prints in her hands. She told me she wanted to feel beautiful, and free from overthinking, from expectations, from constraints. She wanted a stranger to look at her portrait and sense strength and softness, both at once.

That’s what this was for.

If you’ve been carrying everyone else for a while, this is your reminder: you’re allowed to be seen too.

13/08/2026

Did you watch the eclipse last night?

I didn’t. I looked inward instead, and came out the other side with a question I can’t stop sitting with.

It’s about snakes, shedding skin, and what we’re still carrying that no longer belongs to us. I know it’s a long video and you might not watch it all but there’s a question I’d like you to reflect on...

What skin no longer belongs to you, even though you’re still wearing it?

Drop a word, an emoji, or send me a DM if you want.

   

Today marks the last day of World Breastfeeding Week.In my newborn sessions, I photograph breastfeeding the way I photog...
07/08/2026

Today marks the last day of World Breastfeeding Week.

In my newborn sessions, I photograph breastfeeding the way I photograph everything else. Simple, minimal, timeless. And it is beautiful. But I also know that behind so many of those calm photos, there was a mother who struggled, was in pain, doubted herself, even if the camera never caught it.

That’s the story I wanted to tell in Milk Tales. A mix of photography and honest words about what breastfeeding really asks of us. The pain, the challenges, the judgement, the 3am moments no one photographs. It came from my own experience, and from the mothers who let me into theirs.

A week is not enough to talk about what should be shared all year round. The challenges and pain of breastfeeding shouldn’t be a taboo. We all need to speak up and raise more awareness.

If you know someone who is expecting and already wondering about feeding their baby, Milk Tales makes a gentle gift. Not because it has all the answers (actually, far from it), but because it says out loud what’s usually kept hidden: you are not failing. Maybe it’s the system that is failing you.

Link in bio if you’d like a copy.

I’ve been spending time with art books lately. Turning actual pages feels so good.This was a collection I bought myself ...
04/08/2026

I’ve been spending time with art books lately. Turning actual pages feels so good.
This was a collection I bought myself when I was about 15-16

I’m also buying so many books lately, but that’s another problem.

I wanted to look at how the body has been seen for thousands of years.
How the perception of the female body changed, how beauty standards shifts over time. And looking at these grand sculptures inspired me to see my body that way.

I took many photos, with different angles, different types of movement.
Most of them are still files in my computer and one became the print you’re seeing.

I wasn’t trying to copy a statue when I stood on that plinth. I was trying to get comfortable in my own body the way those figures seem to be in theirs.

When did you last really look at your own body, not to change it, but to understand it?

31/07/2026

I tried an experiment.

I asked AI to create a portrait of me. As a photographer, I value real photos, but I did it out of curiosity.

The image was technically okay. Balanced. It looked like me. But I didn’t recognise myself in it. I could see a woman who looked like me, but I couldn’t feel her.
What was missing was presence.

I wasn’t there, in my body, in the moment before the shutter went off, in the small hesitations that happen when you are in front of a camera. There was no experience, no waiting, no interpretation. Just an outcome.

AI can generate a good image from a prompt. But a portrait isn’t built from a prompt. It’s built from attention.

A photographer doesn’t just follow a brief. She notices what isn’t said, she sees how you hold yourself when you stop performing and most importantly responds to energy, not prompts.

This experiment didn’t make me question technology, becasue it moves on its own speed and we can’t really beat that.

But it reminded me why real presence matters to me. And I’m worried that in less than a decade, we’ll be sourrounded by faces that were never really seen and the effect it will have to our memory.

So I set my camera on a tripod and took my own photo instead. Not to compare which one was better, I know there’s no comparison there.

I took the photos live some emotions, to feel something, not just to have something. And what made it more real wasn’t the image on a screen.
It was the print I’m holding now.

When did you last hold a printed photo of yourself?


15/07/2026

Moments like this are the gems in a session. They don’t always come.

But when they do, I’m ready.

No AI image could give you this. Maybe a fake photo, but without the lived experience, it’s just another pretty picture.

Dad saw the smile happen. Mum was watching them both. It was real, and it lasted only a few seconds.

The print is what lets you relive it forever

Not just a digital file, something tangible, after something real.

What’s a moment you wish you had a print of?

06/07/2026

Nobody tells you that the last weeks of pregnancy are also the last weeks of being just you.

You’re not quite a mother, yet. But you’re not quite yourself anymore either.

Somewhere in between, carrying a whole person you haven’t met.

This is the photo of the woman you were, right before.

Before the sleepless nights. Before you start disappearing, just a little, into someone else’s story for a while.

If you’re in it right now, I’d love to capture it for you.

A baby was born this week. But so was someone else.A mother who didn’t exist before. Tired, soft, completely changed, fo...
29/06/2026

A baby was born this week. But so was someone else.

A mother who didn’t exist before. Tired, soft, completely changed, for good and for the better. And so often the one left out of the photos.

I get that you don’t feel ready for a camera right now.
Most mums don’t.

But I’ve never met one who regretted being in the pictures.
Only ones who wished they had been.

You are not the person holding the baby for the photo.

You are the whole story.

Do yourself a favour.
Get in the frame.
Exactly as you are right now.

Tag the mum who needs to see this today.

13/05/2026

Six weeks ago I shared a glimpse behind the scenes of this session. Today, you get to see what we made.

She arrived with her props already chosen.

N**e stockings. The kind her mother wore. The ones women mended rather than replaced.

She knew exactly what she wanted to say.
My job was simply to hold the space and let her say it.

This is what a portrait session can be.
Not a makeover or a way to fit an idea of beauty. But a conversation between a woman and her own story, made visible.

Dyana is an artist, activist and doula. She explores identity, the body, and everything that lives between and beyond definition.

I am grateful I had the chance to photograph her.

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Isleworth
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