Touched by an Angel

A few months ago, I had the privilege of meeting baby CJ and his parents and paternal grandparents, as part of the volunteer work I do as an area coordinator and affiliated photographer for NILMDTS (The Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation ).
CJ was born on my birthday, and when we met he was almost two weeks old. We spent a couple of hours together, at the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta hospital, and took many bitter sweet pictures.

CJ's time here ended after 40 days and 40 nights. He was at home in his parents' bed, surrounded by love and grace, as he passed away. His journey has touched many people, everyone who met him and many who have not. His parents are simply amazing. Their commitment to their family, to making CJ's time here a celebration of love and faith and a testament to the strengthening bond of their love, is just beyond words. To meet them all was to experience the way grace can move through our daily lives, take them over and transform them into something purer and truer, something without end.

His parents continue to work towards keeping CJ's memory alight, and his legacy full of meaning. They are glad to spread the word about the miracle of his life, and as such have agreed that I share their story with you via my blog. Many people who love CJ have planted memory trees in his name. Perhaps someone reading this will do the same. Visit www.treesforcj.com, as well as their caringbridge website to learn more about this family and their special journey.

Life here is precious and fragile. Love is everlasting. And there is joy and grace to be uncovered in every moment. This is what I learned by meeting CJ.

Thank you, Maggie and Chad, for who you are.

Click on the image below to see CJ's slideshow:



With the Month of October being recognized as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, The Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation holds its Annual Fund Drive for six weeks starting in mid-September and ending in October. As the giving season is coming near, consider supporting this volunteer organization which is committed to creating everlasting memories for families of children whose lives are ending much too soon.

Slides, smiles and sunlight

Girl in the sun (click to see larger):

My guys

I love early Fall in Atlanta. And I love my boys:

October's Special Offer

Fall in Love, Share the Love!


Fall is here, and this is the time to snuggle near the ones we love, and to share our joy with loved ones far away.

In this spirit, this month's offer includes:

a 1-hour session, on location (up to 5 people), resulting in at least 30 images available for purchase
a 1 week online link to the pictures
24 5x7 folded art greeting cards using images from this session (or $85 print credit) -- (to share with extended family)
one mounted 8x8 4 image collage, with tabletop display easel (to showcase your family in style) -- see example below
20% off all orders from this session placed 48 hours after the link is made available
(perfect for holiday gifts!)
20% off any additional cards using the same image (perfect if you need more than 24)

All for just $200!

Most of these time slots are weekend slots, so make sure you reserve yours before they all get filled.

This is indeed a wonderful time of the year, I hope to see you and yours during October!

A few more teasers

Here, again, are Catherine and Mike and their five children; it was a perfect day, in the perfect forest!

PIF session sneak peek

A quick image of the wonderful family which I chose for my PIF session.
Mike and Catherine, of In The Moment Photographs, and their super-cool five kids:

I will post a few more tomorrow -- thanks, guys, for being such great models!

The Other Side

Earlier this Summer we were photographed by the one-of-a-kind John Michael Cooper, of AltF. He and Dalisa were on a tour across the country to teach their anti-workshop, and along the way launched a Roadside Families Project. This involved a pay-it-forward ("PIF") approach to providing family photography for other photographers along the way.
In turn, each of the 37 photographers whose families benefited from this wonderful experience, are to pay it forward to another photographer in their area.
This is such a great concept, as most photographers rarely have professional images of their whole family together.
It was interesting to be on the "wrong" side of the lens, and it felt particularly unusual to have someone other than me photograph my kids!

Here is our image (which we also received as a canvas for our family room!), and a solo portrait of myself.

Again, these images are taken by John Michael Cooper. Thank you, John and Dalisa!

(stay tuned in the next couple of days to see pictures of my PIF family!)

Must... share... more....

I just love these images!

Some sweet twin moments:

And one more of Nicole, the wonder-mom: doesn't she look like a movie star?

Cute, cute twins!

Here is a sneak-peek from today's session with this beautiful family. They are good friends of mine, and you have seen their pictures in previous posts on my blog.

The three-year old boys are seriously gorgeous!

Here is fun, bubbly Nicholas:

And thoughtful, brilliant William:

And if you're wondering about the source of these good looks, wonder no more:

More to follow tomorrow. Thanks for playing along, guys, and thanks for introducing me to this awesome location!

A gift for you: "Inner Glow"

I created this Photoshop action to postprocess some of my backlit images, when I want to remove some of the glare/fog and bring out the crisp "inner glow" of my models.

Here is what it does:

Before (straight from the camera):


After running this action:



You can download this action for free at this link, as a gift from me to my blog readers who love photoshopping. It works with Photoshop 7.0 and newer.

Enjoy!


(check back tomorrow for more images of this handsome little boy, as I will be photographing him, his parents and his twin brother -- looking forward to it!)

Grateful

I love my job! I love photography. I love fresh, timeless people photography. I feel fortunate to do what I do, and incredibly grateful to the wonderful families who invite me to preserve a piece of their lives, to help reveal their beauty, their personality, and turn it into art. I love going beyond mere recording of someone's likeness, to recording the unique ways people express their emotions, the truth and brightness of who they really are.
I love creating these photographic keepsakes for generations to come.

Thank you for your trust, and for welcoming me as a witness to the love you share. I am grateful every day, and uplifted by your generous and warm comments of appreciation!

Time flies ...

...and we ARE having fun!

He is four. The boy who made me a mommy. And I am so proud of him, and at the same time I want to slow down time. Four seems so grown!

Happy birthday, dearest Roy!

Atlanta's Mountain

This past weekend, at Stone Mountain Park:

Lots of fun

Some more evidence of the fun we had at the mini photo shoot on Saturday:

And the collage that is included in the September special offer:

Beauty all around me

Today I had the pleasure of photographing these fun, sweet and good-looking siblings and their parents.

I'll post a few more soon, for now, here are the children: 3 year old Chance, and 5 year old Cydney and Monday. (who, as Monday made sure I understood, are f r a t e r n a l twins). I had a blast guys, thanks for inviting me over to capture the beauty and love in your family!

Knee-slapping fun

By popular demand, here is one more post, this time with a collage of the world's most cheerful baby boy and his moms - enjoy!