As you might have guessed, photography is not only my career, it is my passion! I am so grateful to have found something that I have this zeal for and even more grateful to have an incredible family who supports me all the way and a husband who pushes me to have the courage to try. I am a proud Army wife and the mother of three amazing girls…things should get pretty interesting around here in the next few years! I am also a trained doula and a “certified” birth junkie. There is just nothing better than witnessing a baby come into this world, except maybe for photographing it. I love capturing pregnant mamas before their babies make their entrance and showing them how beautiful and full of life they are. Families hold another soft spot in my heart. It makes me so proud to capture the tenderness and love of a family in a beautiful picture that I know will forever be a positive memory for that family. I am humbled by the number of women who ask me to document their breastfeeding relationship and to be able to show the world how normal and beautiful breastfeeding is. And of course, I love capturing those sweet, squishy babies, so new to this world and so fresh with life. It is such a blessing to have found this incredible passion. Imagine what life would be like if everyone loved their jobs as much as I love mine! On a personal note, I didn’t have any maternity pictures taken for my first or my second baby. Honestly, I felt huge and ugly and not in the slightest bit beautiful. By the time I had my third, I realized the importance of pictures commemorating that short time when your child is inside of you. Those pictures completely changed how I felt about myself as a pregnant woman and as a woman in general. I looked at the pictures and saw that I was beautiful and full of life. I saw that my perception of who I was didn’t match what the pictures said about me. I want to show this same strength and beauty to all of the pregnant mamas I am blessed to photograph. When it came to my births, I have no pictures of my labor, birth, or immediate postpartum for my first. For my second, I have one picture that was taken only after she was born. Honestly, when I look at all of the beautiful pictures of my third baby’s birth, I feel sad that I missed out on the opportunity to have these powerful photographs from my first 2 experiences. I believe that birth photography transforms women. In fact, my own birth pictures are my absolute favorite pictures of me. I can see the pain and how hard I was working but I can also see my power and my raw emotion. I would rather look at these images of myself than any of the posed photography I have. The pictures help me remember a time when I was strong and in my own power and for that, they are priceless. My journey to this profession began when I attended a DONA doula training. Shortly after my training, I accidentally came across of very powerful picture of a woman birthing at home while standing. She was yelling as she pulled her baby to her for the first time and you could see the triumphant power in her eyes. I thought to myself, This is how every woman should feel when they birth! When I photographed my first birth, I had no idea the power I was coming into. I was the assistant doula and was asked to bring my camera and photograph some of the labor and birth. I witnessed a woman, so strong in her power and I was able to capture this power through the lens of the camera. The birth did not go as she had planned and there were several traumatic twists and turns along the way. She had a mostly negative memory of the birth experience due to these complications and she told me she had a hard time even thinking about the birth. After view her birth images she was able to see how strong she was and how much she went through, coming out triumphant in the end. I realized that photography has the power to transform, to show women the powerfulness that we as outsiders can see that she sometimes cannot. Since then, I have been a birth photographer at many different types of births, in hospitals, homebirths, and birth centers. I have had the privilege of capturing women in their moment of power and being able to show this power to them through photography. All of the moments surrounding pregnancy, birth, and the newborn period are intimate moments. I strive to convey the emotion from those moments without interrupting them. I want to show you the power that I already see in you and capture the love that you already possess for your family.

Blessings,

Sarah