Fourteen babies in one place can quickly turn to chaos.

When one starts to cry; the chorus of wails spreads like a line of falling dominos.

At Concord photographer Melissa Rowell’s shoot, when one baby began to cry, his mom snapped into soothing mode. She bounced him up and down, and the other moms enlisted a series of preventative measures – rubbing backs, blowing raspberries – and soon, the quiet was restored.

“Okay,” Rowell called from behind the camera. “Ready?”

The moms nodded and reached for their necklines. Nipples peeked from the tops, bottoms, and sides of gowns, and all at once in a field of lavender, the babies began to breastfeed.

Ashley Beckwith, a lactation consultant, was the only mom with twins – one nursing from each nipple. Another mom looked at her. “You are a superwoman,” she said.

This is Rowell’s second annual lavender field breastfeeding photoshoot. In mid-July, she invited moms from all over New Hampshire to join her at Pumpkin Blossom Farm in Warner, where she took individual and group shots of them nursing their children. Moms drive in from up to two hours away – which, with a baby, is quite the commute. The shoot costs $100 per mom, but Rowell is flexible. She offered discounts and payment plans for parents who couldn’t afford the price up front.

“I’ve had moms trade with me,” Rowell said. “I’ve traded for meat, clothes, and other services – I just want to make it accessible to as many moms as possible.” This year, she gave three spots away for free.

Pumpkin Blossom Farm isn’t exactly private. It’s a popular photo spot, and at sunset – the time of Rowell’s shoot – its numbers peak. This didn’t stop any of the moms.

“I have the attitude of, if you have a problem with me feeding my kids, go eat dirt,” Beckwith said.

Encouraging this maternal confidence is part of Rowell’s goal. “It’s 2024, and moms still get shamed for it,” she said.

Rowell herself got disapproving looks from family members when she would unbutton her shirt to breastfeed her son in public. But for her, it was a beautiful and crucial part of being a mother. For her breastfeeding shoots, she always picks natural locations to capture the ethereal glow of motherhood.

The photography piece came in a little later. She didn’t have a photographer capture the birth of her oldest son, which she regretted. So for her second birth, she asked her friend Brooke to document the whole thing.

At 41 ½ weeks of pregnancy, Rowell went to the hospital with a weird feeling in her stomach. Brooke came along, camera in hand. She photographed all 13 hours of Rowell’s labor, capturing background film at the same time. But when Rowell finally delivered her son, he was stillborn. The photos were all she had of him.

They meant the world to her. For what would have been his first birthday, Brooke put together a birth film for Rowell as a gift.

“Every time someone sees the birth video, they say they wish they had one too,” Rowell said. “And I just want to give that to them. Because, I don’t even feel like I have enough, even though that feels selfish.”

To make the video, Brooke used her background footage from the birth shoot – something Rowell is now always sure to get. She attaches her phone, always recording, to the top of her camera during every session.

She captured about 10 minutes of nursing and general baby chaos per mom. Some babies clamped onto their mom’s nipple immediately; others pawed at it haphazardly before pulling their heads away. The moms were too experienced to be embarrassed – and the gaggle of other nursing moms created a sort of forcefield around them, repelling any potential judgment. They were in it together.

Getting the babies to smile for the camera is a whole other battle. Tickles and gentle renditions of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” usually did the trick, but one mom took the challenge as a modeling opportunity. She stood up – lavender buds up to her knees – and rocked her baby back and forth in a series of majestic dips. He threw his head back as he swung, his bare head brushing the tops of the flowers and mouth in a gaping smile. Rowell grinned from behind the camera. The lens snapped furiously.

All of the moms sparkled similarly in front of the camera. For Beckwith, the opportunity to be the model meant as much as the photos themselves.

“Being a mom, I feel like I’m always the one taking the pictures,” she said. “It’s not very often I have pictures taken of me, let alone professional ones.”

But that July day, all 13 moms had the spotlight. The sunset, the gowns, the stretches of lavender in every direction – for a moment, they were treated as preciously as they treat their children.

Sofie Buckminster can be reached at sbuckminster@  cmonitor.com.