18 seconds of life

These intensely intimate photographs capture birth in its raw glory as each baby is delivered by caesarean section, lifted from its mother and held to the light.

Taken by French photographer Christian Berthelot,each frame is shot within the child's first 20 seconds of life. 

The 38-year-old from Brittany, France, started project just six months after his own son was born. 

Dr. Jean-François Morienval, an obstetrician in the hospital where his son was born, asked Christian if he would be interested in taking a series of portraits on the profession of midwifery. 

After a long discussion, the pair decided that the best solution would be for Christian to join the doctors and nurses in the theatre while the child was being born through c-section.

The planning needed to undertake the project then took six months, with Christian needing training to work in a surgical  environment, requests for permission to take photographs in the clinic and requests for permission to take photographs of the mothers. 

He also needed prepare mentally for what he was going to be seeing. 

Christian said of the first time he was in surgery to take the photos: 'I thought back to the birth of my son. The whole team was there and attentive. 

'The doctor watched me from the corner of his eye, to see how I would react if I was going to faint or run away. And I did not even know how I felt. 

'So I hid behind my camera and I did my job.'

Christian acknowledges that some people might find these pictures difficult to look at, but he says that he sees beauty when he looks at the images. 

He said: 'I know there are people who react very badly, who find it disgusting, they tell me that I do not have the right to show the children in the bloodstream, some even told me that it is not real, it is not true. 

'This is absurd, children are not born in cabbages or roses. 

'And there are those who are fascinated, I give them the opportunity to observe in detail the violence of birth. 

'But there are also people like my wife, who encouraged me to do this work, because c is beautiful birth.'

CESAR is being be shown in France during the Festival Circulations' Festival Circulation Exhibition from January 24 to March 8, 2015 at Centquatre, 5 Rue Curial, Paris.  

(dailymail.co.uk)