022 // Birth In Haiti with Sara Hunter

PHOTOS BY SARA HUNTER

ABOUT SARA

"My love for photography started when I was in high school, I was the photographer for my high school yearbook and I developed all the photos in the darkroom myself. I spent years working in photo labs and dark rooms and then moved onto a business in Hollywood, CA. that rented equipment to professional photographers. I also spent some time as a photo assistant.

My life took a lot of different paths over the years. Some were very challenging. I got married, had three kids and over the years always had a camera but sometimes was just too busy raising my children to really have time for photography.

In 2019 I bought a new camera and with the support of my husband I quit my full time job in aviation to be a full time photographer. I started shooting CrossFit competitions in the beginning and still do. I always remember seeing birth photos many years ago and how amazing they were. So I found a local birth center that happened to be only five minutes from my house and offered to photograph a couple births for free. I fell in love immediately!!! I have been photographing birth for four years now and I still cry at every birth. I capture images that the family will cherish forever. I tell birth stories through my images. I have also won several awards for my birth photos.

In December 2020, I took my first trip to Haiti with the midwife I work with, I fell in love immediately and knew this was my calling. I delivered over 3,000 images to MamaBaby Haiti that I took in the 10 days that I was there. April 2022 MamaBaby Haiti asked me to come to photograph the graduation of the midwives and I did my first hike up the mountain to the village of Port Francais, there I fell in love and took so many photos of the families. November 2023 I was asked by MamaBaby Haiti to come back and photograph the grand opening of the new birth center. My trip was so amazing and I was able to photograph the first birth in the new birth center. Before leaving I hiked up the mountain to Port Francais and brought all the photos I took last year. The most amazing experience of my life was seeing the look on everybody's faces when they saw the photos. 

I pinch myself every day because I have the best job ever!!! I get to witness the gift of life and the tears of joy that it brings to the whole family."

Read more about Sara's 2020 trip to Haiti here!

ABOUT MAMABABY HAITI

MamaBaby Haiti

"MamaBaby “Haiti” International is a non-profit that runs three birth centers, health clinics, and a midwifery school in Haiti. We provide a safe place for Haitian women to receive compassionate and respectful care at the hands of skilled midwives. No one is turned away. Every morning at our birth centers, the voices of over 30 women start their day singing as they wait to be seen by the midwives. Every night you hear the rap rap rap on the gate as women come in labor to the sanctuary and safety of MamaBaby to have their babies."

In 2022, MamaBaby Haiti’s Haitian midwives attended 28,000  appointments and 1,800 births