All photos: Ethan Herrold / Colorado Maternity Photography
For Colorado-based photographer Ethan Herrold, “pregnancy is a powerful expression of the human form.” He celebrates the strength, resilience, and beauty of women through his portraits, encouraging them to embrace their changing bodies rather than hide them. His ongoing series, Pregnant Athletes, takes it one step further, showcasing female divers, skiers, runners, boxers, and climbers who kept doing what they love through pregnancy.
“Most of the athletes I’ve worked with have hidden their pregnancies at some point. At the crag. At the trail. On the slopes. Even in the ring. Too embarrassed to turn heads. Too proud to give up what they love,” says Herrold. “And that’s the point of this work. Not to hide the bump anymore, but to let it sing as part of you. To show that pregnancy is the ultimate superpower, and has been shameful for too long. This series is a visual symphony to every mom, active or not, who deserves to feel seen, beautiful, and empowered.”
Professional runner Neely Gracey is one of the athletes featured in the series. Rather than stepping away from the sport, she continued running throughout all three of her pregnancies and postpartum recoveries, describing it as an important part of staying physically and mentally healthy. Herrold photographed Gracey in 2025 during her third and final pregnancy, capturing her effortlessly soaring through Colorado’s mountainscape with her son still in the womb.
Diver and journalist Natalie Lampert also took part in the series. Herrold used underwater camera equipment to capture her gracefully gliding through water at 35 weeks pregnant. Before conceiving, Lampert had spent years writing about reproductive medicine, women’s bodies, and her own doubts about whether she would ever have a child. Herrold’s photos capture a deeply personal milestone, celebrating her pregnancy and the journey that led there.
We recently interviewed Herrold to find out more about his motivations behind the series. We also reached out to both Gracey and Lampert to hear what it was like to take part in the project, and what it means to them. Read on for My Modern Met’s exclusive interview.
Ethan, What was it about seeing these women in action that felt important to capture?
Ethan Herrold (EH): I photograph pregnant women for a living, more than a hundred every year, so I get a view of pregnancy most people never see. And what I kept seeing didn’t match the pictures our culture makes. The first time I watched a boxer work at 37 weeks, the gap between what was in front of me and every pregnancy photo I’d ever seen felt enormous. She wasn’t pregnant instead of being an athlete. She was both, completely, in the same second. A body building a human while doing its sport might be the most athletic thing I’ve ever pointed a camera at, and almost no photography was treating it that way. That gap felt like my job.
People often think of pregnancy as a time of fragility and rest. How do you hope this project challenges that?
EH: Rest is real, and any mother who wants it has more than earned it. What I push back on is fragility as the default setting. Pregnancy is the body at full output, a 40-week biological miracle, and the women in this series are proving that miracle while running, diving, skating, you name it. My hope is that an expecting mother sees these frames and feels the floor of what’s possible move. Not pressure to train; permission to be strong. Whether she spends her third trimester on a climbing wall or on the couch, it’s her call, and her body is doing something enormous either way.
How did you work with each athlete to decide what would best represent their strength and identity?
EH: Every shoot started with a conversation instead of a shot list. I asked each athlete what her sport feels like from the inside, the moment she loves most, and what she was proudest her body could still do. Then we built the frame around her answer. Sometimes that meant peak effort, mid-punch or mid-stride; sometimes it meant the quieter control her sport is really made of. Each mama made her own calls about what her body was ready for; my job was the frame, not the finish line. There’s a working trust in these sessions I call professional intimacy, and it’s the real subject of the series. By the time the camera comes up, she isn’t performing strength for me. She’s just doing her sport, and I’m trying to keep up.
Neely, What motivated you to continue training during pregnancy?
Neely Gracey (NG): Pregnancy helped me realize how important running is to me. My first pregnancy, I couldn’t run after half way and I missed that part of my routine so much. My second and third pregnancies I ran throughout the entirety and I had better deliveries and quicker recoveries! Running is so cool because it can be adapted to meet you in many phases of life. For me, from training as a pro athlete, to walking/jogging during my third trimester, to rebuilding postpartum to attempt a qualification for my fifth Olympic trials, to many stroller miles with my littles, being a runner is a huge part of my identity.
What do you wish more people understood about pregnancy and athleticism?
NG: When I was pregnant with my first, I definitely felt like I was no longer an athlete. That I couldn’t be both during that phase. But I learned there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to how the body responds and what feels right during pregnancy. That it’s ok to walk/jog, it’s ok to slow down and shorten runs to what feels right. It’s ok to run fast too if it feels good! I learned to listen to my body cues, and lean in on the good days, and be ok to rest when needed too. The research is becoming more clear that active pregnancies support healthy moms and babies and enhance the likelihood of a positive birth experience.
Did participating in the project change the way you see yourself and other women?
NG: I was pregnant with my third boy and wanted photos to commemorate my final pregnancy. Ethan blew my expectations out of the water with his images. He directed and organized the shoot so well and I felt confident, strong, and beautiful. None of which are things I typically feel while pregnant. I loved how I got to be my true self in the photos, a mother runner in the mountains of Colorado. When I saw the images, it was amazing to see how he captured authentically who I am in each frame. It helped me see myself differently during that third trimester. I appreciated my body more than ever!
Natalie, why do you think it’s important that these images exist, and what was your motivation for taking part?
Natalie Lampert (NL): Pregnant women are often photographed as serene, still, and delicate. I love that these images show something else: movement, nerve, play, and physical power.
My motivation was really a mix of fun and challenge. I was a competitive springboard diver when I was younger, but I hadn’t thought seriously about diving in years. Once Ethan and I started talking about what it might look like to photograph a woman diving at 35 weeks pregnant, I got excited by the thought of being back on the board in that body, while very pregnant—I’d never imagined doing that, so when the opportunity presented itself, I was like, hell yeah. 🙂
Also, I spent much of my pregnancy swimming. Water has always made me feel powerful and calm, and it felt special to share that experience with my son before he was born. Getting back on the diving board a couple of weeks before giving birth was a thrilling way to bring all of that together. I felt like a badass, frankly—and late pregnancy does not always give women many opportunities to feel that way!
How did becoming pregnant change your relationship with diving, if at all?
NL: Pregnancy didn’t exactly change my relationship with diving, because I wasn’t actively diving before I became pregnant. What it did was give me an unexpected reason to return to something I had loved as a child.
But I’m also a journalist and the author of a book about fertility. I’d spent years writing about reproductive medicine, women’s bodies, and my own uncertainty about whether I would ever become pregnant. So there was something surreal and deeply full-circle about standing on the diving board, visibly pregnant with my son, and reconnecting with this earlier version of myself.
My body was completely different, of course—my balance had changed, my center of gravity had changed, I was carrying another person. But the feeling of being in the air and entering the water was still recognizable. Felt so familiar and freeing. That was incredibly moving to me.
How do you hope these photographs influence future generations of active women who might want to become a mother?
NL: I hope the photographs expand the way people imagine pregnant bodies.
Pregnancy doesn’t erase a woman’s strength, history, appetite for challenge, or connection to the things she loves. Seeing myself in these images—in a bathing suit, heavily pregnant, doing something physically difficult that I’ve loved since I was 10 years old—made me see my own body with a kind of reverence.
I hope younger women see that becoming pregnant doesn’t require becoming smaller, more fragile, or less fully yourself. Not every pregnant woman should be diving, obviously. But pregnant women deserve to be seen as powerful, complicated people, not only as bodies to be protected or handled carefully.
Check out more images from Herrold’s incredible Pregnant Athletes series.
