NILMDTS (in the recent news)

Today, I went online to renew my volunteer status at Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.  I should have done this months ago, but haven't for various reasons.  It's been nagging me though, so tonight I decided to go ahead with it.  When I went to the website, I found that NILMDTS has been in the news recently as the Duggars of the reality show 19 Kids & Counting required the organization's services this past week.  There's a lot of controversy due to the memorial service and photos which leaked

First off, to those of you who are offended by the photographs - don't look.  I saw a couple images in an article and they're absolutely tasteful.  If you think photographing deceased infants is sick and wrong, imagine it was you.  Wouldn't you want the pictures?  Think of history - in the Victorian era, post-mortem images (especially of children) were quite common.  The mortality rate was high and a photograph was a reminder of the child that was lost.  It still is.

Second - This is a tragedy.  Yes, I completely understand mocking reality show stars, but this is a baby.  A lost baby.  The way some articles online are referring to the child is disgusting.  I honestly am far more sickened by the scathing tone of the articles and their uncaring choice of words than the fact that a family wants to have (and show photos at) a memorial service for their child.

Third - Despite the sorrow (I can't help but get teary when I hear about the death of infants and children), I'm glad that NILMDTS was in the news.  The more that the world hears about the organization, the better.  NILMDTS does a wonderful thing for people going through a terrible time and it's something that everyone should be aware of.

So yeah.  I just wanted to share that with you guys if you weren't aware.  And if you are aware, don't hate, ok?  You can mock reality show people if you want (I know I do it) but don't be cruel about this.

Oh, and seeing as it's the holiday season, if you're in the giving mood, please donate to Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.  It's an amazing organization providing professional infant memorial photography for free to families who have lost or are likely to lose their baby.  What is there but memories?

Maternity - Katie

One of my good friends, Katie, is having a baby!!  She's 8 months along, so last week she and her boyfriend, Ed, had me do some maternity shots for them.   SO CUTE!  When baby Cody arrives, we might do some family portraits as well with all their kids, but these were about Katie and Ed and their coming child.  Ed is SO excited to be having a boy!

I LOVE this picture.  It's so freaking adorable, from the way he's kissing her belly to the way her hand is resting on his arm.  Just adorable.

Of course, I had to get a few shots just of Katie - this silhouette of her in front of the softbox is definitely a favorite.  You can still see the outline of her arm and hands touching her belly and the softbox is slightly tilted to give it an interesting sort of framing.  I dig.

Baby Portraits of Cody

If I want to have a successful portrait studio (which I do) then I have to learn to do mainstream stuff.  As much as I love my bands, and as amazing at it would be to spend my life photographing them (and getting paid for it, how awesome would THAT be?!), I gotta be able to pay the bills.  I've done the senior portrait thing, and, amazingly enough, it's fun.  The seniors I photograph are cool, and their parents obviously are too, because a lot of my work is nontraditional and they have faith in me, with my strangely colored hair and portfolio featuring zombies and musicians, to capture beautiful images of their children.  These are nearly grown-up children though, high school seniors.  They have opinions of their own and can say "hey Mom (or Dad), this chick does cool stuff, let's go to her" and Mom might listen.  Small children, infants, they're a little different.  The parents pick the photographer, and I know some parents go for traditional.

I'm not traditional, but I like kids, and would have no qualms about getting into photographing them.  Kids are hysterical.  My friend Rosa, who I've known since 8th grade (nearly 10 years now!!  Wow, I JUST realized that and feel old), has a son, Cody, who will be 7 months old in a couple days time and is freakin' adorable.  Today we hung out and I took pictures of him to practice.  Some of these are edited, some aren't.  If it has a crappy background, it obviously isn't.  I really need to splurge on a nice one instead of that paper thing I've been using for the last 2 or 3 years.

 

This kid makes the best faces, he's awesome.  I had my softbox going, which is like 5 times the size of Cody, so he was kind of in awe of it.  The backdrop was set up in kitchen as usual, but the floor is hard, so we had my down comforter under it in case he fell over.  Which he did, so having the cushioning was good foresight.  Rosa brought some of his toys, like his lion puppet, so we played with those for a bit, then I went to see what I had.  Sadly, I could not find my giant purple bunny, but it's purple and would have looked weird with his green outfit anyway.  I did find a leopard-print octopus though, which Cody LOVED.  The shot below with his feet up (sooo cute!) is when Rosa was dangling it above him, as you can see in another shot.  Then we sat him back up, took a few more pictures, and went to the Chinese buffet for lunch.