life with a newborn :: wyatt richard

Little Wyatt came to join his parents, Korynn and James just over a month ago, and he's SO cherished and abundantly loved. He seems determined to keep his eyes open as many hours per day as possible, as if he doesn't want to miss a second of this good life he's living. He's the first born in his family and also the first grandchild on both sides. Obviously he has a lifetime of being loved and spoiled ahead of him. 

I've gotten to photograph several Life With A Newborn sessions like this one this month. Such a treat, since they're a favorite of mine. Can't wait to show more soon!

milk time :: breastfeeding and snuggle portraits

in

I've lost track of what edition number we're at now. But for the first time after quite a long pause, we did a round of Milk Time portraits in the middle of July in a sweet, light-filled studio-apartment in historic downtown Grand Rapids. 

Seven mamas and their littlest loves came through to be photographed together, and five of them have given me permission to share a few highlights from their sessions here. Which is great, because I think they are absolutely oxytocin-producing images and we could all use a bit of that. 

Here's to breastfeeding, through the pain and the obstacles and straight into the bond that's unlike any other. 

Oh boy. That's good stuff. :)

It'll be a while before I do another Milk Time EVENT, but you can arrange one for yourself at a time and place of your choosing whenever the heck you want, you know. Read more HERE. 

Feed all the babies. 

family photojournalism :: the sellers family

in

You'll remember that this past weekend this family was also featured in blog post about a fun experiment I roped my poor husband into doing with me, in which we took a look at how much of a difference a professional photojournalist makes compared to attempting to document your family life yourself with your entry level DSLR. So if you missed that, go have a look.

Now let me properly introduce and blog about these beautiful people! This is my brother Justin, his wife Marguerite, and their three kiddos Claire (6), Anja (4) and Sam (7 months). These are siblings who are also friends and heros in my life. Both Justin and Marguerite live with incredibly thoughtful intention, giving themselves quietly and often to serve others, practice hospitality in the most natural and generous way, and work diligently at their professions, while also parenting their kids with gentle boundaries and lots of affection. I couldn't be more fond of them, nor more grateful for them in my life. 

On this particular evening, there was nothing unusual at all going on. Just dinner prep, eating dinner together outside, cleaning up the kitchen (each girl has their role to play), playing on the floor and in the front yard, eating popsicles, giving baby brother a sink bath before bed, reading books and cuddling, putting on pajamas and brushing teeth. And in all this really normal stuff there's so much life and such personality in these kiddos. I invite you to come along and spend this evening with this family of 5. 

Why would I hire someone else to take photos I could take myself?

In-home family photojournalism and documentary sessions can seem so... ordinary? unglamorous? unspecial? unscripted?... that you may be tempted to think it's something you could just as easily do yourself at home with your own DSLR. Maybe you've wondered why you would pay someone else hundreds of dollars to do what you can do at home, or what you would be able to do if you purchased a "nice camera" (a DSLR). 

And I can see where that temptation comes from! Most of us have to make really careful choices about how we spend our money, and we really want to know that we're spending our dollars on something worth every penny we pay for it. Most of us don't want to pay someone else to do something we can do ourselves. It's called frugality and it's a prized West Michigan character trait! ;)

So I owe you an explanation of why I've set up shop doing this thing that might appear to be something anybody could do, this thing that has a price tag on it larger than many of your other household purchases. 

To illustrate the reasons, I set up a bit of an experiment! So this is going to be fun!

Here's the set-up: I brought my husband, Tim (who is a pastor, not a photographer), along to a 2-hour, in-home family photojournalism session. I set him up with an entry-level/consumer model DSLR likely very similar to the one you might own. I put the camera settings on Program mode (it's just one notch more sophisticated than Auto mode) and kept the kit lens on it (the lens every store-bought DSLR camera comes with). In other words, I tried to set up the camera settings and gear to those of the average, at-home, non-professional DSLR user. As I shot, he followed me around, shooting from right behind me to get very similar scenes/moments. After the session I loaded his photos and mine to my computer and imported them into my editing software. Only, I didn't edit his, because I'm again assuming that the average at-home DSLR user isn't likely taking the time to do this or wouldn't own the editing software that a professional does. But I did spend some time editing my own images, perfecting and personalizing them with my characteristic style. 

What you see here is a series of side-by-side comparisons. In each diptych, on the left is Tim's image and on the right is my image. After you've looked through all the images, some summary thoughts are at the end. 

Ready? Go...

Also, hilariously, about an hour and 15 minutes into the session, Tim started to run out of steam. To be fair, he'd had a very rough/interrupted night of sleep the night previous and I know he wouldn't have done this if the family we were photographing together was anyone other than our siblings, but this happened...

Evidently, in-home family photojournalism is not for the faint of heart. Hhahaha. 

So, in case it isn't clear from just looking at the photo diptychs above, 

You hire me to:

  • See beauty and possibility in an ordinary scene. Often there are scenes you might not notice yourself because you're so IN it day in and day out, but that's precisely why it's worth capturing.

  • Compose an image that "works" (tells a story, captures a personality, is nice to look at). Even a "nice camera" doesn't know how to compose an image in order to make it visually appealing and inclusive of all the important bits while also excluding all the distractions and clutter. It takes someone with lots of practice and a natural gift to do that part.

  • Know how to make the camera do what it needs to do in order to make the vision come across in a photo. Even a "nice camera" in "Auto" mode will prioritize things that you don't mean for it to prioritize, like putting focus on a part of the scene that you aren't interested in or exposing for the bright lights behind your subject thereby turning your subject into a silhouette. A professional photographer knows how to boss a camera around so that it takes a picture that is in line with what your eyes are seeing.

  • Make sure every member of the family is represented in the photos. If you own your own camera, chances are one or the other parent is the one who uses it the most, which can sometimes mean that the one parent is rarely in any photos his/herself. But when a professional comes in to do photos, even that parent will certainly be included in the images.

  • Own and maintain a camera that can handle low-light situations without getting blurry or orange. The cameras I carry cost quite a bit more money than the average family camera, and that's because they can do more stuff. They can shoot clear, crisp images even in low light situations (which in-home photos so often are). I also own lenses that are "faster" and more capable in a wide variety of settings. You don't have to buy all the thousands of dollars of gear, because your photographer is carrying it for you.

  • Own and masterfully use editing software to make a finished piece of art of of each image. You're not likely to spend hundreds of dollars on software to edit images (plus, learning to edit is an entirely separate sharp learning curve), nor the external hard-drives to organize and store all the large images, or the back-up systems to ensure nothing is lost. But I have and utilize all of those things so that you don't have to.

  • Have no other things competing for my time to organize, edit, deliver and print your photos. This is my JOB, which means that I WILL "get around to" culling, editing, and uploading your photos, plus I'll make sure you have some printed in a photo book, too. So often when we shoot for ourselves at home, we never get to that part and we're left with backed up memory cards and a ton of folders on our hard drives full of unsorted, untouched, and unprinted photos.

Thanks so much for looking and reading this far. I hope that maybe it makes a bit more sense now why you'd want to hire someone else to take photos that you COULDN'T actually take yourself. :)

PS: I'll be blogging this family session fully and in a more typical fashion a bit later this week, too. 

birth :: ophelia grey

in

just a few weeks shy of her big brother's (i was at his birth, too) 2nd birthday, ophelia grey made her entrance on the floor of a hospital room in the early morning hours. her mama was the most remarkable blend of fierce and kind, a rare combination perfectly blended in this woman. whitney knew what she was about, knew the birth she was determined to have, and she held her line unwaveringly and respectfully as she first informed her nurses and OBs that she would not be getting into the bed at all, and continually turned down nudges to move into any positions or places that would make things easier for her team but weren't working for her body. i wish that all women could watch her in action as an amazing example of what it looks like to be your own advocate in birth!

and i don't think i've laughed more at any other birth! whitney and brandon were full of humor and wit, at least in between contractions. sara, who is a midwife acting as a doula in this space, and i were giggling most of the way through this unfolding miracle of birth. truly a delightful experience to be with this couple as they did the work of bringing their sweet girl earth side.

finally, a reminder for you, dear blog readers: the reason i show so many birth images on this blog -- including depictions of the hard emotional and physical work of LABOR -- is because i believe it's so important for us to see what birth is really like, all the guts and glory. so that we don't need to be afraid of it anymore, so that we can know what is possible, and so that we can know that giving birth is a natural and beautiful invitation to the human experience. i am SO grateful that mamas like whitney are brave enough to share their images and stories because slowly, bit by bit, as women give one another this gift, we can change the  misconceptions and culture of fear and control that has dominated american birth for too long. let's do this!

Yes, I do have limited availability for a couple fall birth stories. Reach out sooner than later if this is a gift you want to give your own family, too. 

life with a newborn :: atticus

in

Aleaha and Patrick started their family about 3 years ago in their lovely midcentury modern home near Grand Rapids' Riverside Park with the birth of their first son, Wesley. This summer, Wesley was joined by a baby brother, Atticus.

They're lovers of art and good coffee, they play hard with the incredibly active Wesley, and they are attended most everywhere by their beloved (and aged) family dog Bachman :). These images show a little slice of life for them since Atticus came home and expanded their hearts. 

I'm looking forward to the next 5 years with this family, watching them grown and stopping to tell their stories every so often, as they also signed up for the "Make Me Yours" membership! How am I so lucky?!