Archive for the ‘Maternity’ Category

i love the pregnant body.
if i could shoot maternity sessions always i would never get tired of seeing that beautiful. round. romantic. renaissance… don’t worry i’m not getting carried away ~ this maternity shoot is outstanding in the field of special because it is my daughter and her husband. their first baby. our first grandchild, grandsong, cash ezra. as always there are more images of worth, but these flooooowed well and i will leave it at this ~ summer’s first day ~ in the beautiful country of forreston, texas. jenna said from the beginning that when she reached the watermelon size there would be no more photographs! she is 34 weeks here. the belly ~ perfectly watermelonish! absolute adorableness.



alishia, graceful with child

February 25, 2012

this maternity session took place 3 weeks ago. alishia was approaching 35 weeks gestation. surrounded by david and olivia, she seemed to be completely at ease and embracing what would soon come through laboring. as i write their blog, “britain robert” is a mere 12 hrs old. dear readers (a favorite charlotte brontë beginning) never cease to be amazed that what was once a mysterious round package within a woman is now by her side, beautifully presenting all that was hidden for nine months. we will meet next friday when i get to take his newbornies!! we are going to england ~ so.to.speak


i loved watching alishia’s hands pulling olivia closely to herself throughout our session… something so natural of their relationship ~ touched my heart to the core.



i will end this with 2 images of daddy and daughter ~ olivia held up well!

finished in a sea of golden sunset…

i woke up thinking that there is a story of my life and the life of my inutero grandchild to be told. somehow they are intertwined. it is for good because God’s promise is true ~ all things work together for good for those that love Him. this is my journalistic expression ~ continuum ~ in images of our daughter and coming grandchild. and also, this is a post to show how growing life is so dear…

 

at this time, jenna and cash are already amazing parents of a baby ~ in the womb. they were mildly tried in getting to this place. nothing seems more concise and clear as these verses: “Three things are never satisfied, NO, there are four that never say, enough… hell, a barren womb, a parched land, a forest fire.” {Proverbs 30:15-17 the Message} their happy announcement came at the beginning of week 6… baby Case!

week 7

week 9

week 11

week 12

week 13

14 weeks and fyi’s here…
you can google any week of gestation and find out the amazing changes taking place! baby case is 3 1/2 inches long and can make faces… squint, frown, grimace :/ {something like that i guess}. the kidneys, liver and spleen are working organs. this baby can peediddle! i also believe that swallowing is going on as well because the swallowing/peeing cycle is all part of the healthy ratio of amniotic fluid forming. the baby is the size of a lemon. i love lemons!! so all of these will remain in color 🙂


15 weeks



below ~ a representation of the exponential growth… grape = 9week!

16 weeks ~ entering into the “glow” of it all ~ which is completely displayed in jenna now! nausea is nearly gone, anticipating feeling flutters soon and so close to knowing who this is growing inside.





week 17… i love this week in images. doing one simple thing that every household with children does made jenna smile even though she was actually fighting a bad cold ~ boo. babies in the womb are measured from “crown to rump”, which i should have made clear before. at this point the baby measures approximately 5″ so imagine jenna and cash’s baby sitting for his/her first height check :} tangibles are good… what is truer is that God is good; tangibles are fun!



jenna and cash’s little “sweet potato” at 18 weeks… measuring 5 1/2 inches head to bottom ~ feeling life ~ ~ little flutters toward the right. baby case must be stretching out! tomorrow we should know WHO this is. happiness. {carved heart idea ~ jenna’s friend}



19 weeks ~ this one is significant… jenna and cash now know this is their little boy! his name is cash ezra after his daddy cash elliot… keeping initials the same. i love him and i love his name. it is good to be praying for him, my grandsong ~ that was a typo, but i think i will leave it as it… made me smile ~ maybe he will sing :}
updates on gestational information: at 19 weeks neurologically the sensory system is becoming more highly defined. cash ezra can hear those prayers now little mama and daddy!! his arms and legs are proportionate to his body… weighing in at 8 1/2 ounces and 6 inches from crown to rump. during my years of labor/delivery work in philadelphia i witnessed my first inutero surgery on a 19 weeker. miraculous. 25 years ago that was cutting edge technology… i feel sure it has become much more common now though no less spectacular.
in the images below, i actualized our fruit baby this week! one site said the size of a mango, but none measured 6″ so i added a kumquat head and a bowtie! our little man :}






20 weeks!! though jenna didn’t want to include her face in this shoot, she seemed the loveliest i’ve ever photographed her… so i win and here is her face with baby banana now measuring in at 9 inches from crown to heel!



21 weeks!!
at this gestational age, little cash is approximately 9 1/2 inches tall and weighing 1 lb. the correlating fruit/vege is a carrot… not too interesting that one skinny carrot so we tied 1 pound’s worth together all about 9 1/2 inches in length and let the green tops remain… jenna is dreaming of a baby with hair :}


{holding place for 22 weeks}
23 weeks ~ jenna has this full presence of life. everyday. everyone has now felt cash ezra kicking and it makes us laugh! by the charts he is approaching around 11 1/2 inches. goodness it is getting difficult to find a representation of that in the produce isle :/ lots of ‘hair’ talk on the updates… i love that about babies ~ the soft everywhere hair. i gave jenna a bit of a glow in this weeks images ~ she is going blond soon anyway so we may-as-well get used to it.

continuing…

portrait of pregnancy ~ cami

September 6, 2011

roundness never seems so perfect as that of the belly of a third-trimester, first-time pregnant woman. cami may not appreciate those words as she carries the weight of this unborn daughter for a few more weeks, but she certainly can appreciate the beauty seen here – as i wrote her, she is deeply beautiful in this moment. matt by her side adds more love and more depth. it is an interesting intimacy in photographing the bareness of a woman’s abdomen full of baby. it is a privilege. every so often i see a growth-spurt in my work and this is one of them. i am so thankful to and for you both and for this opportunity.

to sandee and mark larkin, thank you for a space of perfect light. my right hand girl and daughter, isabel, was brilliant at bouncing this light for me!! sandee, next time, i do the physical stuff before the shoot. i will bring the muffins and you just sit, talk to me and have some of that awesome almond iced tea ready:) i have a hankerin’!! thank you for making this afternoon portion of the shoot private, comfortable and most successful.


 


the second half of the shoot was held in the evening when temperatures reached a decent 97 degrees. we were on the private property of friends. thank you kim and larry fuller for a picturesque ending… the last image is for you! and a hearty thanks to cyndi fuller for assisting me with the balloon drop. your enthusiasm gave energy to the weary at the end of a long day!




larry, closing up camp and leading the ladies home.

Woven in her womb…

September 1, 2011

carrie is mom to annika, eden and nora ~ still within. i met her almost two years ago when she came for the newborn session of eden. she meant so much to me that i still have several enlarged images of eden in my office, which i will surrender soon and hand them over to you, carrie!

noted from our first meeting, carrie is a textile artist. there is absolutely nothing she cannot knit or crochet so i knew first that i wanted to incorporate yarns and textures into this shoot. every thing the girls are wearing in these first few images, carrie handmade! i also felt with carrie’s whimsicality, i wanted to add something that would be a little more fairy-tale. this was outside of knowing she would have princess crowns for the girls. simply, confirmation. the crowns were brilliant! i haven’t met a more content mom – ever. a woman happy to have less in order to have more with her daughters and husband. she doesn’t have to do anything to prove it. you will easily see her connection to the girls, not because i am taking pictures of them, but because the bond strongly existed long before they came to me.



as i was cleaning and converting the living room into a studio, i dusted a photograph of my daughter when she was 9 years old. she was eating an orange in it. i was struck with this memory: shortly after it was taken (some 15 yrs ago) i had found a poem by a mom written with imagery while eating oranges with her child. ownership of this poem now being lost i will credit it to ‘an amazing anonymous’. i am dedicating this poem to carrie. here in these photographs annika and eden enjoyed completely a bowl of oranges just so i could create the poem in pictures.

Eating Oranges ~ for you, carrie

Eating oranges with you is amazing ~
Worth the cessation of the interminable laundry foldings…
And infinitely rewarding in contrast.

Five minutes with you like this is a parenthetical event,
(unplumed, but persuasive in it’s simplicity).

The brilliance of this moment, infact, throws into the shadow
the tears (yours and mine),
the exhaustion,
the endemic clutter,
the smiles at my occupation, (even)
the here-to-fore glaringly obvious dearth of spending money.

You are oblivious to such miracles, of course.
Thoroughly juiced you sit cross-legged, absorbed in your third orange.
This is sweet! you say overcome.
I know,
I know.
I have tasted these years fully.

belly painting – carrie’s idea… woven paper floor – mine!



once again the day here in south dallas proved to be too hot (106) to make a pregnant woman spend much time outside… so my front yard had to suffice for part…ugh! i think it fell short of what i had envisioned, but that’s just got to be let go of.


the reward!

THE END!!!!