Baby R (RI Newborn Photography)

Oh the joy of returning to the home of a client who has made the investment of a belly/ baby package! I am always so thrilled to witness beautiful families bloom and grow. I spent some time with the C/J family just before the snow began to recede this spring when I photographed their maternity session. Along with the green peeking out of the thawing ground and the much welcomed warm sun, their family soon embraced this beautiful baby!

Stunning Birth Video (RI doula reflecting on birth)

As an avid observer of all things birth, I often troll YouTube and find births that people choose to share that speak about how transcendent birth can be. This video took my breath away!

How amazing the is birthing body?! It makes me recall a favorite Walt Whitman poem (only excerpts below). He sings the praise of her form so beautifully.

"I sing the body electric...


This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot...



This the nucleus--after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see...

The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,

The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,

Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,

Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,

The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,

The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,

Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,

Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,

The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,

The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,

The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,

The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,

The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,

The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,

The exquisite realization of health;

O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,

O I say now these are the soul!"

Birthday Fun (RI birth and family photography)

One of the greatest joys of being a doula and family photographer is that it gives me the opportunity to see the families I have served grow! There is something stunning about watching a child be birthed into the world, witnessing their first breath and then seeing them at the time of their first birthday- stepping out (often literally) into the world, personality blooming.

 

Often, this results in a set of images, my gift to the family. I make pictures, I bear witness to the great work of love that is parenthood.  I see the love of the family grow with the child. Sleepless nights written into parents... wisdom, sometimes new laugh lines- a metamorphosis of parent and child.

Aaron Siskind says, “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

These are the small details of what we love, our child's hands, the size of their feet, the texture of their baby cheeks. The images take us back when are children are grown, to times when we knew each mark on their bodies. When we were their simple source of joy and comfort.