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.

Home alone. Home - alone. Wow. Those two words have not been in my vocabulary for a while. But today, I am.
The rest of the circus (and sometimes chaos) that is my family are doing their daily stuff. Just me here. Well, and the kittens too. Oh, and the dog. Eh...and fourteen chicks in the cellar, and six chickens on the lawn.
(...)
Anyway, so I am the only human here, now. (If that's an appropriate term for a zombie, haha, see post below.)
And what do I do on my day off?
I clean the house, I tidy, I de-tickify (remove ticks from) and brush the wolfhound (that's a lot of dog to groom!), I do laundry, I move furniture around, I sort out the recycling, change linen, blahblahblah.
Just so I don't have to do all that on my working days.
Now, a coffee for ten minutes before picking Ronja up from the bus.

And yes, there is magic in this life, in this part of the journey that I am on, but sometimes I grab myself just wanting to lie down, flat down on the ground, and sleep.
DSC_1033

Concentration.

The big sleep.