© Christian Berthelot, Leanne, born April 8, 2014 at 8:31 a.m. 1.745 kg. 13 seconds of life. From the Cesar series.
© Christian Berthelot, Liza, born Feb. 26, 2013 at 8:45 a.m. 3.2 kg. 3 seconds of life. From the Cesar series.
© Christian Berthelot, Mael, born Dec. 13, 2013 at 4:52 p.m. 2.8 kg. 18 seconds of life. From the Cesar series.
© Christian Berthelot, Kevin, born Dec. 27, 2013 at 10:36 a.m. 4.366 kg. 13 seconds of life. From the Cesar series.
© Christian Berthelot, Lize, born Dec. 24, 2013 at 8:49 a.m. 3.574 kg. 9 seconds of life. From the Cesar series.
Berthelot and Morievnal offered any new mothers who participated in the series a copy of a photograph of their baby — so far they have photographed 40 caesarean births. Berthelot said witnessing so many births has changed his perspective about the process and has decided to focus solely on the first few moments of life, though he knows viewers may find the images a bit raw and tough to look at.
“I know there are people who react very badly, who find it disgusting, they tell me that I do not have the right to show the children in the bloodstream,” he said.” Some even told me that it is not real, it is not true. This is absurd. Children are not born in cabbages or roses. And there are those who are fascinated, I give them the opportunity to observe in detail the violence of birth, but there are also people like my wife, who encouraged me to do this work, because caesarean is beautiful birth.”
More of Christian’s work here. Excerpt and text via Slate, by David Rosenberg.
N I H I L S E N T I M E N T A L G I A, 