I want to be the eyes of the mothers and fathers, to allow them to concentrate on the precious gift of their child’s arrival while creatively and respectfully documenting their journey into parenthood and their child’s journey to the world.

Ash Davenport is an award-winning birth and wedding photographer, business coach, educator, and online marketing consultant from London, UK. A natural-born artist and thrill seeker, Ash is constantly raising the bar with his life and photography.

Find him here: theartofseo.co + mikistudios.com

He approaches every shoot as an exciting new adventure to capture images that make you smile, cry, and laugh out loud. He is constantly observing what’s unique about the people in front of him and the love that the connects family and friends. When he is not behind his camera, he’s running marathons, swimming competitively with his Olympian brother, or trekking up Everest (for his honeymoon).

Amanda is a birth and documentary artist based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Equipped with three wildly unique birth experiences of her own, this path has shaped her into the advocate and riveting storyteller she is today. Amanda has impacted and empowered birthing people in her area for nearly a decade. Her most treasured moment was photographing the very first clear drape cesarean in North Carolina. It was an honor to be first hand witness to the cesarean experience changing for families almost instantaneously. This work is more than photography for Amanda, it’s being a part of the story and giving each family a voice.

I am a human, an artist, a keeper, a daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother.

I am committed to my journey. To my passion. To my heart song. Being in community with people, supporting birth, life and death, and honoring the journey of others through visual storytelling.

I feel most grounded when I am barefoot in the forest. But really, any nature will do, barefoot is a must though.

Gladys Garcia is a wife, homeschooling mother of four, birth photographer, doula and filmmaker based out of Central Florida. She is passionate about her faith in Jesus, living within her purpose, legacy making and helping others capture theirs in-the-making.  

Gladys began birth work by supporting pregnant teen moms as a volunteer birth coach for a non-profit in 2002. After getting married and experiencing four amazing natural births, Gladys established Birth Hour Photography in 2016, passionate about birth advocacy and supporting women so they too could have positive, transformative childbirth experiences.  During the pandemic in 2020 she maximized opportunities and became a bilingual BirthBootCamp Certified Doula. Using her background in psychology and EMS, her multicultural background and life experiences, Gladys thrives in making deeper connections with clients, which allows her to capture raw, authentic moments of them truly embracing the power of vulnerability and the beauty in life’s tiniest moments.

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With over 150 births of experience, Gladys uses her education, training and life story to empower and encourage women to tap into their God-given purpose and strength to impact the world around them. In addition to birth work, Gladys leverages her influence by mentoring other Women in Business, help the fight against Human Trafficking through a partnership with the Tim Tebow foundation and continues to volunteer with Youth in the community.

When she is not supporting other women, you will find her exploring outdoors with her family, reading, sipping on organic coffee or green juice, cuddled on the couch or around the fire making memories with her husband and children.

Bree Garcia is a published and award winning birth and newborn photographer based in Los Angeles, California. She specializes in documenting raw emotion, chemistry, and fine art posed newborn portraiture. She strives to capture all the details that make birth unique, in a beautiful, artistic, and empowering way. She has been photographing births since 2015 and has photographed over 80 births. Bree is half of J&B Photography which is co-owned with her other half Jessie. Together they have 4 little girls and a golden doodle.

Hanna Hill-Destigter is a multi-award-winning birth and motherhood photographer based in Durham, England who specializes in emotive documentary art that captures the powerful transformation into parenthood. She has been in the industry for over 12 years and has successfully relocated her business five different times as her family moves all around the world.

Along with photography, Hanna does social media management for photographers and companies, including IAPBP. She also designs creative websites for small businesses especially birth workers and photographers who want to express their art in a professional and empowering way.

She is a fierce mamma bear to her one little boy and married to her best friend.

As a pregnancy and birth photographer and videographer, Diana celebrates her clients’ fiery path to parenthood—capturing the moments, raw emotions and essence of their births through her camera lens so they can relive and share the beauty of each transcendent beat.

She is also a birth doula, passionate about honoring parenting quests from pregnancy through birth and during the slow-yet-furious days that follow.

She guides and empowers her clients to a birth that fits their style and inspires a deep understanding of the passage into new life within the reflection of the beauty and rawness of the spectacular moment, captured through birth photography and videography services.

Pulling from her own motherhood experience, Jessica’s passion for capturing the memories of family and childhood drive her motivation in her work. Living overseas in Japan in a military family taught her to gather inspiration from different cultures and new experiences. Her love of art and interest in photography has sparked a journey into becoming a professional photographer and she jumped in feet-first to the birth photography industry. Jessica doesn’t shy away from trying new things and taking risks in her business – evidenced by her enthusiasm to join our 2021 Review Panelist Team as an emerging photographer. 

Leilani Rogers is an award-winning, veteran birth photographer with a lifetime of experience in the visual arts industry. As the Founder of The Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project and Birthbound Photographer, as well as being named Austin’s Best Birth Photographer for over 6 years, she brings an unparalleled perspective to our 2020 judge panel.

Growing up in Houston, TX I was raised to appreciate and partake in the arts as much as possible. I spent most of my time in dance and art classes, play rehearsal, the orchestra or violin and viola lessons. In college I received a degree in Viola Performance and Pedagogy, and after years of performing, recording, and teaching, I decided to raise a family. I have 4 kids, ages 13-20 and a husband who encourages me to follow through on all my crazy ideas. These special people have inspired me to pay attention to the little things, find and preserve joy in the day-to-day, and keep on keeping on no matter what. When people ask me how I became a birth photographer, I tell them that it was simply meant to be. My life as a mother and an artist intersected in 2011 when my sister-in-law invited me to document her birth. I photographed a lot of families back then, but that all changed very quickly once I realized my true calling. My love for documenting birth has evolved into a love for teaching birth photography. And when I’m not immersed in that work, I love to entertain, I love plants, and I love goofing around (read: embarrassing) with my kids.

Achievements: Austin’s Best Birth Photographer 2013-2019, Featured on television and in print in The Huffington Post, Midwifery Today, Redbook Magazine, People, FStoppers, CLICK, SELF, Cosmopolitan, ABC News, TODAY, Woman’s Day, and Hello Giggles, Keynote speaker at Off-Call in 2015 and 2017, Instructor at The Baby Summit in 2016, Both finalist and winner in prior IAPBP Image Competitions (2014/2017), Finalist in Lensculture’s Portait of the Year Competition 2017, Exhibited with Lensculture throughout Europe in 2018, Finalist in ClickinMom’s VOICE Collection 2017, Editor’s choice with National Geographic Your Shot’s “The Gift of Life” assignment 2017, 6th place in Birth, Shoot&Share in 2018 Competition, Founder of the Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project Founder of Birthbound Photographer

Selena Rollason is an award-winning birth and documentary photographer from Brisbane, Australia with more than 20 years of experience in the photography industry, and 10 years as a birth photographer. She is a passionate storyteller, powerful and emotive photojournalist that works to break societal taboos and is known for raising important discussions around the challenges of parenthood, childbirth and other realities of everyday parenting life.

Selena’s photographs have been published internationally in media around the world (from Huffington Post to the Today Show) and have seen her win more than 10 International, National and State Photography Titles including the 2019 Photojournalism Grand Award at WPPI, 2015 & 2016 Australian Birth Photographer of the Year titles, Queensland Travel (2017), Documentary (2018) and Birth (2016) Photographer of the Year titles, as well as the illustrious AIPP EPSON 2018 Queensland Professional Photographer of the Year.

Selena is an established international and national photography judge specializing in documentary, birth and lifestyle portraiture. Her skills in photography and judging brings her to be a valued panelist for this event.

I am ever evolving as a human being and constantly learning which translates into everything I do. From birth work to bereavement work, birth photography and videography to doula work. I received my BA in Human Development/Counseling Services to pursue a career in therapy but changed my path after experiencing the birth of my little one in 2017 (like so many other birth workers have). I am a self proclaimed extroverted introvert, who thrives off realness and authenticity (with a dash of cussing and sarcasm), and snuggling any animal I can find. I believe in sustainability in birth work, showing value, and cultivating deep relationships with those I’m in community with. Because at the end of the day, this work is not something we can do alone.

Belle Verdiglione is an Australian based creative, founder of the Camera Queens and pioneer in embodied Potent Identity™ Photography. Using her leadership and legacy as the example, Belle personifies what’s possible when we let our most vulnerable edges conceive new levels of creativity that truly change how we see ourselves.

After 9 years as an award-winning birth photographer, deep personal growth paved a new path in Belle’s professional career, to elevate the power, purpose and potential of creative entrepreneurs and visionaries that bring radical rawness and authenticity to the forefront of our world.

Her work mirror’s her own fierce stand for women’s empowerment, with an importance in celebrating the identity of all women, irrespective of size, culture and age. By emulating what her previous work created for the birthing world, Belle hopes to attract widespread exposure to Potent Identity™ Photography through her role as a speaker and photography coach, to revolutionise how all humans around the world are seen in their intimate stories.

Dania is Canadian born, with Pines and Cedars and icy cold rivers running deep in her veins however, she has called Australia home now for over half her life. She became passionate about the art of storytelling during a 10 year stint working as a filmmaker/editor/technical jack of all trades in a small non-profit documentary filmmaking team, but it wasn’t until she had her own children that she began to realise the power in telling birth stories. Dania and her husband live in Tropical North Queensland together with their 4 children. She began professionally documenting births at the beginning of 2018 and has since completed training as a doula and childbirth educator. Dania has been internationally published and has received several awards for her work.