Meet Valentina: Maternity & Empowerment Photographer, London
"Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift.
That's why it's called the present"
Hello, and welcome to my world of truth and beauty.
I'm Valentina, an Italian-born portrait photographer based in Twickenham, London.
For over 15 years I've been photographing women through the chapters that change them most: pregnancy, motherhood, and lately, the changes that come with turning 40 and beyond.
Being Italian, family sits at the centre of everything I do. I grew up in a home where love was loud, where the table was always somehow too small for everyone who showed up (and we had a big table!), and where a photograph was never just a picture. It was proof that we were there, together, and that it mattered.
That's the belief I bring to every session: your story deserves the same proof.
Portrait Photography Built Around Real Emotion
For me, a photograph is more than just an image. It is a memory, a story, an emotion, a moment that would otherwise fade into the past.
Motherhood is a journey filled with ups and downs, joys and exhaustion. It reveals a strength in you that deserves to be celebrated, not just survived.
Through my lens, I look for your real emotions: the wonder of an expectant belly, the tired tenderness of the first weeks, the pride of a growing family, and lately, the confidence of women who are finally turning the camera back on themselves.
Capturing these moments isn't just my profession. It's what fills my heart.
Maternity Photography and Empowering Portraits for Women Over 40
I still love photographing newborns. Some of my favourite mornings are still spent with a two-week-old baby. But these days my heart is drawn most to two chapters: maternity, and the women who've decided that 40 is not a slowing down but a beginning.
I created my Empowering Women Portrait Sessions because I kept meeting women who had spent decades being everyone else's photographer, mother, memory keeper, and had never once been in front of the camera for themselves. If that's you, I wanted to change that.
Why I Believe in Printed Photographs
Something else has shifted in me over the past few years. As technology moves faster and faster, and everyone's phone fills with thousands of photos none of us will ever look at again, I've found myself doing the opposite: slowing down. Rediscovering the pleasure of reading an actual book. Making things with my hands, from drawings to cyanotype printing. Choosing quality over quantity, in life and in my work.
That's why I believe so strongly in print, for you too. Not hundreds of digital files buried on a hard drive somewhere, but a handful of images, printed, framed, held, that will still be on your wall in thirty years.
Less noise. More meaning.
Your Worries, My Expertise
I understand the worries that come with standing in front of a camera. The fear of not recognising your postpartum body, the self-consciousness about a belly that feels foreign, or the worry that you've let yourself go while everyone else was looked after first.
I hear it just as often from women over 40: the sense that you've spent years behind the camera and rarely in front of it, so you no longer know how to be looked at. The doubt that you're still worth photographing, when really, you've simply never stopped being worth it.
Please, let me carry those concerns for you. With over 15 years of experience, I know how to help a nervous mother feel like herself again, how to soothe a fussy newborn without breaking the moment, and how to guide a woman who hasn't felt truly seen in years toward a portrait she recognises as her own.
I PROMISE I will take good care of you.
So all you need to bring is yourself, exactly as you are today. The settling in, the reassurance, the cup of tea after, I'll take care of the rest.
Milk Tales: A Book on Breastfeeding, Truth and Motherhood
A few years ago, breastfeeding nearly broke me. The exhaustion, the guilt, the silence around how hard it can really be, none of it matched the picture I'd been sold.
Out of that came Milk Tales , a book of photographs and stories about the truths we don't often say out loud. It's the piece of work I'm proudest of, because it's the truest picture of what I believe: that your hardest moments deserve to be seen as much as your joy.
Recognised & Featured
Over the years, my work has been recognised by some names I'm genuinely proud of:
- Featured in PhotoVogue as part of my breastfeeding project
- Featured in Grazia, “Photographing 25 New Mothers Helped Me Come to Terms With My Breastfeeding Guilt ”
- #iAlso100 2025 , f:Entrepreneur's list of 100 leading female entrepreneurs in the UK
- The Portrait Masters, Bronze with Distinction, Contemporary Portrait
- SWPP, Gold, Maternity & Bump to Baby
- NPS, Gold, Pregnancy & Baby
Follow Me
VALE@PHOTOGRAPHYBYVALENTINA.COM
07577 978246
LONDON NEWBORN & MATERNITY PHOTOGRAPHER
Based in Twickenham, in the Richmond borough, SW London.
I work with families across London to capture life’s most meaningful milestones through portrait photography.