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.

Summer is here, and we're making the most of it! (Because let's face it, chances are it might leave again soon. Sorry about the pessimism!)
I am officially off work for the summer, so finally the work on a vegetable garden could start! Fashionably late, yes, but we've sown this late before with success, so fingers crossed! And to be fair, we really haven't had anywhere to prepare a garden until now, this being a building site and all. But now! Oh yes, now we're talking. I've dug up quite a bit of land, and Mr. Payne started fencing around it this evening. Because without a fence, no garden - our free range chickens would put a stop to that pronto. So hopefully, seeds will be in the ground tomorrow! Yay!
What else...oh yes. Pancakes. And homework, as always. And homemade bread! My new craze, I can feel it. And at the end of the day, we made the most of it again, with the resources we have anyway, and had a small scale pool party in our tufty back garden.
A lovely summer day!
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Last night.

The apple trees are in bloom and life is good.