August is National Breastfeeding Month (and August 1-7 is World Breastfeeding Week for a double helping) and because I do a lot of breastfeeding portraits, both as portraits and in my personal, more arty, work, and because I haven’t had a blog contest in a while it’s time to have one.

I will use the wonders of random.org, which generates a number random enough to suit (we’ll not get into the vagaries of getting a truly random number) to give away one of my breastfeeding board books including shipping as long as I’m only shipping within the continental United States. Live far away and win? You can either have me ship it to a friend in the continental US or I’ll find out the actual shipping cost for you. There will also be some runners up, who will get breastfeeding magnets.

How do you enter, you ask? So easy.

* 1 entry per comment on this post (1 comment per person, please)
* 1 entry per link back, not counting tweets (as many link backs as you’d like, as long as they come from different URLs)
* 1 entry per tweet with a link

I’ll close comments on August 31st, post the big winner, and email all the winners to get their addresses. Voila. I said it was easy.

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Wheeee! I hit 1,000 fans (or “likers” as Facebook now terms it) on Facebook and, as promised, am doing a giveaway to celebrate that arbitrary yet nevertheless pleasing number. What do you win? A set of 24 folded cards with a picture (my choice) from either your session* or, if you haven’t had one or simply prefer, one of the pictures below. How do you enter? Just leave a comment on this post if you are a fan on Facebook. Please be fair and only comment once, otherwise you’ll make my life difficult and I will have to cry. If you must have a second entry you can tweet about the post and the tweet will show up as a comment number.

I’ll use a random number generator on August 10th to select a winner and email that person to ask what image I should put on the cards.

(Click on each thumbnail to see the full picture)

* Session must occur before 12/31/2010

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I got together earlier this summer with some Connecticut photographers and there was much shooting of one another’s children, as children will often be more compliant for a stranger than for their own mother. This is why your babysitter gets your kids to sleep with no fussing and they demand 5 cups of water, 2 stories, a monster search and 3,489 kisses from you. I shot with film the whole day, and one of these days I’ll manage to get that post written where I talk about WHY I like film so much.

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To celebrate National Breastfeeding Month I am offering ultra-mini sessions. What is this? Our gracious hostess, Carrie, is opening her house in Coventry up on Sunday August 29th. You drop by with a check (or cash) for $50 and nurse on camera. You’ll get 5 nursing images in an online gallery from which to select one 5X7. Yes the 5X7 is included in your $50. Yes, you can order additional images.

I usually charge $40 for a 5X7 so this really is a fabulous deal if your goal is to get a handful of breastfeeding shots to remember this time.

Quick F.A.Q

1. Do I have to make a reservation?
No, but I’d appreciate it if you let me know you plan on coming so I have a sense of how many people to expect.

2. Can I get it in color?
No.

3. Please…
No.

4. Can I bring my older (non-nursing) children and have you shoot them too?
If there is no one waiting to have a breastfeeding shot done AND your child is cooperative, yes, I can do individual pictures during lulls. But please be aware that the shot you get is unlikely to be the kind of image people get from regular sessions.

5. Can I bring my family and do our Christmas card?
No. You COULD hope that all of your children are cooperative and do a series of individual shots but no group pictures unless you are tandem nursing.

6. Where is it?
1485 N. River Rd. Coventry, CT

7. What time?
Between noon and 4PM

8. What was that date again?
August 29th

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When you are related to a photographer you run the risk that she’ll bring the weird camera when she comes to your wedding. It’s a horrible burden but I think Ian and Natalya, both brilliant intellectuals with a penchant for the artistic flair, bear it well. Congratulations on your beautiful wedding and best wishes for a happy and interesting life!

Holga wedding images and portraits are not for everyone but if this kind of special imagery appeals to you let me know!

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I asked Meg to be one of my “nursing on film” models this summer; I had a hunch she’d be interested as I met her at the La Leche League conference in April where she was coordinating the exhibit hall. She met me at Westmoor Park, one of the treasures here in West Hartford, and she and her daughter nursed here, there and everywhere.

Tell me about your daughter.
The sweetest girl! She is everything I have been told about myself as a child, my mini-me. Boy, am I in trouble!

Less than half women are still breastfeeding at 6 months and the number drops under 20% at a year. Why did you decide to keep going? To what do you attribute your success when so many other women struggle with breastfeeding?
I didn’t really decide, its hard to believe she is 2 1/2, already. Not sure when that happened, LOL. I was determined, when things were rough I sought support from my doula, LLL, and my mom. It was so important to me that she was breastfed, that was my driving force. When she latched on and was suckling, in the early days, she was happy and at peace, it made the whole process worth it!

Why did you decide to become a La Leche League leader?
I attended LLL meeting with my mom as a young child. I thought about going to meetings and being a LLL Leader long before I ever had a child. I want every woman to be able to experience breastfeeding and know how important and wonderful it is!

What is the best part of motherhood?
Watching your child grow and learn, and become a little person. Everyday is something new. It’s amazing!

What do you think is the most challenging part?
The most challenging part, is having enough time and money! Having to be a working mother, I sometimes feel guilty but breastfeeding allows us to have a bonding time and spend time “just us”.

What does your daughter say and do that makes you melt?
WHOA! There is so much! When she says “I wube you” (I love you) that’s the best!

What makes you nuts?
The total defiance! When she doesn’t want to listen, she doesn’t…oh and probably when she response “NO WAY!” that could make me crazy!

What advice do you have from the trenches of motherhood?
Just go with it! Don’t worry about the right way/wrong way to mother. Just nurse and be happy! We are so stressed by everything, and the time line of mother-baby is so short and goes by so fast, don’t waste it being worried about everything! Take a deep breath and jump in!

Thanks, Meg!
Thank you so much, Stacie!

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If you ever think to yourself, “You know, self, I’d really like all the other mothers at the playground to stare at me like I am a total lunatic” I have some tips.

1. Leave the DSLR at home. Everyone has one now, they all know what they are and they are sizing up your lens. Is that a 70-200 in your bag or are you just happy to see me?

2. Instead, bring out a toy camera. Make sure to load the film – what is this film thing you speak of? – at the picnic table. The medium format film will get an extra odd look as it doesn’t look like the film people remember. Then, pull out your roll of gaff tape and tape the sucker up.

3. Lie on the ground slightly in front of the swing set so you can shoot up. Try not to get kicked in the face – it’s best to be back a little bit.

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OK, so you bought the DSLR. It’s big. But you are still getting the underexposed pictures at the beach where your kid looks like she’s standing in a deep dark shadow while the ocean looks bright and beautiful behind her. This is starting to annoy you. What to do?

Taking Better Snapshots:  Part 1:  Learn to Shoot in Manual

Part 1: Take the camera off auto, put it in manual and learn to read the in-camera meter (or buy a separate meter or get very very good at eyeballing it).   Otherwise, you have a very expensive point and shoot.

When you look in the view finder you’ll see a grid thus:

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

The one in the middle is “correct” exposure, but for close ups of pale skin you actually want the slider a bit towards overexposure because some people are just whiter than the percentage of grey that the camera uses to determine “right”.

Part 2: Once you are in Manual get a stuffed animal or an apple or anything less mobile and more patient than a child and start taking lots of pictures, changing the ISO, f-stop and shutter speed settings for each one to see how the triangle of exposure changes the final picture.

ISO is how fast the film will record the picture. The higher the number, the faster the film. The lower the number, the crisper the picture will look.

F-stop is how wide your aperture is.  The wider the aperture, the smaller the number.  f/1.8 is a wider aperture than f/5.6.  The wider the aperture the more light will be let in, the shallower the in focus area will be, and the more the background will be out of focus.  It’s hard to nail your focus with anything smaller than 4.0 until you practice rather a lot.

Shutter speed is how long the camera lets in light. My hand is too shaky to handle anything below 1/125 th of a second.  The loose rule of thumb is take the size of your lens (say, 50mm), double it (to 100) and make sure your shutter speed has that number as the lowest denominator (1/100).

Part 3: Practice with your kids on an easy lighting day.  What’s easy?  Overcast.  When the sun is behind the clouds you won’t have to worry about shadows in their faces, bright sun patches behind them or backlighting.

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I am scheduling two days of mini-sessions for the holidays. These are 20-30 minute short sessions geared directly to getting you one or two shots for holiday gifting and cards (and though printed cards are not part of the package I do have a selection of templates you can use to order cards should you so desire. The templates can be viewed HERE.)

Your mini-session includes:

• Electronic pre-consultation. This is, I admit, impersonal but it helps to make sure that those 5-10 shots are the ones you are looking for and I’m not shooting blind, which is awkward in photography.
• 20-30 minute session. This is significantly shorter than a regular session but kids are often pretty fabulous within the first 10 minutes and quite done by 40. Obviously, there won’t be sleeping newborn “Simply Babies” shots in this mix.
• 5-10 proofs from which to choose. Regular sessions start at 20 and are usually 30ish. Mini sessions, being mini, obviously have fewer pictures.
• Online ordering. I have done away with online ordering for all but mini-sessions because it was known to make people want to throw their computers across the room, preferably at my head. However, keeping mini-sessions as streamlined as possible helps me to keep the costs down. If, however, the software makes you want to scream and throw things at me we can do a phone ordering session instead.
• 11×14 (or smaller) portrait.
• 10 desk prints (8X10 or smaller). All prints must be the same size and same image. 8X10 prints are $65 a-la-carte so this *poof* is a $650 value in one line item.
• 50 4X6 prints (same image) OR 1 digital negative (cropped to 4X6 at 300dpi). Whether you have me print them or opt to print them yourself, photos are the piece de resistance of holiday cards and gains you 5 points in the Swistle Thistle holiday card scoring game. Order an extra set of bulk 4X6 prints for 2 more points

*Yes, it’s cheaper in August. No, you don’t get less stuff. I start to get very busy in late September and go flat out through the end of November so if you go early and aren’t tucked into my busiest time, you get a discount.

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