Silver Glitter and a Swimming Pool, Nine Months In

There’s a specific kind of dread that comes with opening Facebook and finding another pregnancy announcement from someone you last spoke to at a school reunion. The photos are always the same: bad lighting, bathroom mirror, hands cupped under the belly, a caption that opens with a heart emoji. I’ve defriended people for less.

Bonnie Strange is doing something entirely different. The German model and artist has been documenting her pregnancy on Instagram, and the results look less like a baby announcement than a proper body of work. One image: silver glitter pressed across skin, staring directly into the lens. Another: floating in a pool, the water catching the light in a way that makes the whole frame feel slightly unreal. Palms in the background. A stillness that’s hard to manufacture.

What makes them work isn’t production value—it’s the absence of performance anxiety. She isn’t trying to make the pregnancy look cute or aspirational. She looks like herself, nine months pregnant, doing exactly what she would have done before. The result is photography about presence rather than announcement, which is rarer than it sounds.

I’d buy the book. I’d hang the prints. I’d spend an afternoon in a gallery with these on the walls and feel like I’d spent the time well. That’s not a small thing.