Maternity Sessions

Every time I do a maternity session, I can’t help but think of the birth of my business. I was pregnant with my first child, Mary, now almost 14, when I took the leap to open an in-home photography studio. I am entirely self-taught. That means different things to different people, but for me, it’s been a 15 year commitment to get better, to learn everyday, to take workshops, work with mentors, test myself, test my limits.

But in those earliest days, I was also a test subject. I got a sense of what I liked to see in photographs of myself when I was pregnant. And what I wanted to capture above all, was this boundless sense of hope and opportunity. This incredible feeling of fullness. Yes, of course, the belly is full. But so it the heart and the mind.

Maternity photos will never lose their sense of magic for me. Even though my last baby is going to be seven, when I look at my own maternity pictures, I am transported right back there, to a time when I hadn’t yet met Mary, Anna or Charlie. When they were of me, entirely, but not yet themselves.

And what I know now, so many years later, is that the hope, the excitement, the possibility…it doesn’t wane. It transforms into something so much more specific, concrete and precious. It becomes your child’s laugh, their impetuousness, their joy, their talents, their challenges…all of what you imagined coalesces into a real, thinking, feeling person, who never ceases to amaze.

But I am so glad to have those maternity pictures, because they remind me that as magical as being pregnant is, it’s only the precursor to the incredible journey of raising a child.

I encourage all parents, adoptive, those with surrogates, pregnant moms, to consider taking some pre-baby photos. Because while when we think about maternity pictures, we automatically skew to the baby bump, when in fact, the magic of hope and possibility is most often found in the eyes.

For further previews and information please visit my Facebook page!