Jana Romanova Photography "Waiting"

I came across these amazing photos by Russian photographer Jana Romanova. Jana took pictures of her pregnant friends, acquaintances, and strangers with their partners first thing in the morning while they were sleeping. She wanted to capture the couples at a time that they were not aware of their appearances and also wanted to capture the natural state of their relationship while expecting a child.

 The Series "Waiting" includes 40 images representing the 40 weeks of pregnancy.

"All people wait in a different way. Especially when they are going to have a baby. To begin with - being ready to give birth to a child is in a woman's nature. Once she got pregnant woman is ready to become a mother, Usually this force is stronger then all thoughts and hesitations, and during pregnancy her mind changes as well as her body. But when it comes to a man there is always a question. Hormones don't effect his behavior and there is no little life growing inside him during 9 months. Is waiting for a child social or natural for a man in our world? What is special in his waiting?All pictures in this project were made during early morning when couples are sleeping or drowsing, and don't really care about their appearance and one can see thier attitude to each other and to this little miracle that is growing up inside their family. Although there is no action in this series of pictures, but still it is a narrative which can be read out of poses in which each of them lie, out of the surface of their rooms. All these pictures are not staged and were produced during early in the morning when couples were asleep and didn't know about the shooting or they just woke up and too sleepy to care about their appearance.

I tried to understand what kind of roles a young man and woman play in their new family. From the very beginning when he hasn’t yet realized he’s going to be a father, and she is left alone with this knowledge about a small life growing inside her, passing the step where he becomes a child himself rejecting this new responsibility, and after that coming to a part where he awakes and slowly and they start to play equal roles in the process of waiting.

Waiting not only for a child to be born, but also for their entire life to be changed in 40 weeks."