Oh how they grow!

I'm always so excited to see the babies whose pictures I took when they were newborns so of course I was very happy when Madelyn's mommy got in touch to schedule an appointment for 6 month old photos! It's always so fun to catch up with parents and hear how parenthood is going, see how the baby has grown and of course, see which parent they resemble more (in Madelyn's case it's Daddy- hands down!) This is my slow season so I was anxious to get back to shooting and what a lot of shooting I did! I had a great time hearing all about Madelyn's first six months while playing with the baby and snapping away... I ended up coming home with a ridiculous number of photos to sift through but six month olds are just so much FUN to work with that I couldn't help myself! The sun was shining so we got to spend a few minutes outside and one of the family cats, Wyatt, even decided to join the fun! Here's a selection of my favorites along with a comparison of Madelyn, then and now...

This is the very last shot of the day... I think Maddy decided she needed to have a little fun with the camera ; )

Two cool parents + one happy baby = good times for me!

One of the best things about my work is the relationships I develop with my long term clients like Mark, Hedy and baby Joaquim. If you follow my blog, you'll notice quite a few photographs featuring this family. I first met Mark & Hedy back in early September when Hedy was very, very pregnant with Joaquim. We met a couple times to do some belly shots and the three of us hit it off quite well right off the bat. A couple weeks later I was back to meet little Joaquim when he was just two days old.

The thing I really love about Mark & Hedy is that they are totally comfortable being just who they are with me. Sometimes it is a real challenge to get my clients to relax and be themselves in front of the camera but that is never a problem with Mark or Hedy! We just hang out at their house, talk & play with Joaquim & the dog & cats while I'm snapping away. It always feels more like a visit between friends than a photo shoot. The result is a bunch of completely non-traditional but beautiful images that truly capture the heart of this family!

One of the cool things about being a photographer is that I possess a skill worth trading with others! I love doing skills trades with clients and for months before I met Hedy I'd been wishing & hoping to find a pregnant massage therapist to trade photographs for massages. Imagine how happy I was when I learned she was a massage therapist! She loved the idea of trading my "First Year" package for (MUCH needed) massages and so we met last month to capture this little guy at age three months.

What a happy baby Joaquim is! I generally prefer to wait to photograph babies until they are four months old because it is much easier to elicit smiles from them at that age but I had no problem getting smiles from this one! I had such a great time with him this time that I can hardly wait to see him again at age 6 months... my favorite age to work with!

PS: I'm always open to considering trades for goods or services. If you are interested, please don't hesitate to contact me!

For the love of a little girl

Abigail Tandy Maye Stout

May 2005

It's been just over two years since I started this little photography business and I'll be the first to say there have been quite a few hard learned lessons along the way, but none so much as the ones taught to me by a little girl named Abi.

It was May 2005 when my girlfriend Leah called me from the Montessori school where she works to ask me to take some pictures of the kids for an end-of-the-school-year project they were working on for their parents. At the time photography was simply something I enjoyed doing and was good at. I thought it would be fun so I agreed. Despite not knowing what the heck I was doing, I had a great time setting the kids up in the garden and snapping a handful of shots of each of them. I made a 4x6 print of one picture of each kid and passed them on to Leah. I didn't think too much about those pictures after that, except for one day later that summer when I was cleaning up my hard drive and deleted all of them, thinking to myself "Why would I ever need these again?"

By the following winter I had started doing photo shoots for pay and was working hard to get my business rolling. It was January when I received another phone call from Leah who called to ask if I still had the digital files of the pictures I took of the kids the previous spring. I couldn't imagine why she would need them until she told me that Abi, one of the little girls whose picture I had taken, had died in a tragic accident over the weekend. The picture I had taken of her was a favorite of her parents and they wanted to use it for her obituary and memorial service and they needed a better original file to work with than the 4x6 print. I was certain I had deleted the files but said I would scour my hard drive for them, just in case.

The conversation left me stunned and hurting for Abi's parents, for my friend, and for all the children at the Montessori who lost their little friend. I wanted so much to be able to help her parents. I wanted even more to be able to give them all of the other photos I had taken of their little girl that they had never seen that I had so naively disposed of. Mostly I was angry and screaming inside, "This is wrong. This is NOT why I take pictures of children."

I'd taken pictures of so many children in rapid succession that day that it wasn't until I saw the picture I had taken of Abi in the newspaper that I was able to recall her face. I felt horrible when I read her father's words in the article describing how unique his little girl was, how everyone she ever met was touched by her presence. "How can I possibly not remember this child whose picture I took?" I berated myself. I didn't realize it yet, but his words would eventually ring true for me too.

I'm amazed by the way one picture capturing a single moment in a person's life can be so powerful to the life of another. I only have a horrible scanned copy of it now but this single photograph of Abi has shaped my career as a photographer more than any other I've taken. Of course now I keep an archive of every image I create during a photo shoot but it goes far beyond this. When I saw this photo again for the first time after her death, the first thing I thought was "It's not really a very good picture- I wish I had done better." But when I mentioned this to people who really knew Abi, they said "No, Sandi... it's perfect. It's Abi."

What I didn't understand at that time is the most poignant lesson I learned from the loss of Abi Stout: as a photographer I will never view the images I create of my clients with the same eyes as those of that person's loved ones. It is because of this that I am careful about which images I delete (and it is the reason why my clients receive so many images from one shoot!) As much as I want to and as hard as I try, I just can't know for sure which picture is going to capture the expression that melts your heart or brings tears to your eyes. This is the reason I advocate an ongoing relationship with my clients- the more familiarity there is between us, the better able I'll be at anticipating your facial expressions and thus capturing the essence of your family and children. As I always say, anyone can take a picture of what you look like. My goal is to create pictures of who you are.

It's been two years today since the world lost little Abi Stout and my thoughts have been with her parents all day. I got the chance to meet and work with Karen and JB a couple of months ago when I offered to do a newborn shoot with them and their new baby girl, Aurora. I was nervous as heck going into this experience but it was absolutely wonderful to talk to them about Abi and I remain so thankful for the opportunity to be able to express to them what their little girl meant to me. Seeing this photo of Abi framed and displayed in their home is an experience I'll never forget.

Thank you, Karen and JB for welcoming me into your home and sharing your world with me. Yours really was the most emotional photo shoot I have ever done and I am a better person for it. I think you are both truly incredible people and Aurora is so fortunate to have you for parents. I wish the three of you a long lifetime of smiles : )