Stacie Turner Photography Blog » Breastfeeding Portraits

Ultra-Mini Breastfeeding Portrait Sessions

Stacie — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:56:18 +0000

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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Meg: Nursing Mother

Stacie — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:14:03 +0000

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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Posters for World Breastfeeding Week

Stacie — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:44:47 +0000

I am designing some posters to give away to local lactation professionals, doulas, obstetricians and midwives for World Breastfeeding Week in August which means I need to choose which images from my stash of nursing photos to use in the poster. I’m planning on including 16-20 small images. Please take a look at the gallery (password: milk) and let me know which ones YOU like. And, if YOU are one of those lactation professional/doula/midwife/obstetrician people and would like a poster please let me know that too!

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Breastfeeding on the Back Porch

Stacie — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:48:44 +0000

This is part of an ongoing project to do a series of informal pictures of nursing friends, all shot with toy cameras.

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Breastfeeding Portrait and a Question

Stacie — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:36:20 +0000

I nursed my twins until they were 3 and a half. I’m a member of La Leche League, though I’ve never gone to a meeting (when I needed the support I was too tired and when I didn’t I was too busy.) I put together a breastfeeding picture book I’ll never make any money from because it annoyed me that the breastfeeding picture books for toddlers I could find were all so dreadful. Finally, I have an entire gallery of breastfeeding images on my main web site. I’ve had people suggest, both directly to me and in more general conversations about marketing portrait photography, that breastfeeding images shouldn’t be included in portfolios. They put people off, especially toddler images, is the suggestion.

What do you think?

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Breastfeeding Portrait | Connecticut Baby Photographer

Stacie — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:04:15 +0000

This little guy has met my camera before. I did his newborn portraits when he was three weeks old; usually you want to do newborn pictures before the baby is two weeks old because they stop curling up to sleep and are more interested in looking around and stretching out their feet by three weeks but this guy was the most cooperative newborn shoot one could hope for. That has not changed. Generally breastfeeding portraits are simple with children under three months but older babies pull off a lot to look around. This guy was mostly about the eating, though he worked in some leg stretches at the same time for a little multi-tasking.

I’ll be showing a lot of these breastfeeding portraits at the Connecticut La Leche League conference in April so be sure to stop by my table and flip through the albums (and pick up a copy of the breastfeeding picture book while you’re there – my little labor of love.)

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One From the Archives | Breastfeeding Portraits

Stacie — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:43:04 +0000

I was looking for something in my archives of favorites from shoots past and found this one and had to haul it out to share again. What you can’t tell in this photo is that this mother had low milk supply. Her goal from the shoot was to get an image of herself using the SNS with her younger daughter. As you can see, despite the low supply issues she successfully nursed through toddlerhood!

If you can’t tell (hah!) I think breastfeeding portraits are a really nice thing to do for yourself. It won’t be, for most of us, the picture we get as a 20X30 canvas and hang above the mantle but the portrait helps preserve the sweetness of a relationship that is, in retrospect, astonishingly fleeting. Most people don’t want a whole session dedicated to getting a nursing portrait, but if it is something you want be sure to tell me so we can integrate it into your newborn portrait session, baby portrait session or toddler portrait session. In newborn photography sessions I allot plenty of time for the baby to eat anyway, so it is genuinely simple to add some breastfeeding shots. Older babies and toddlers tend to be distractable nursers – they pull off to look at the camera – so it helps to know ahead of time you want to capture some breastfeeding shots so I know to allow time for them.

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One of Motherhood's Little Triumphs | Connecticut Portrait Photographer

Stacie — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:01:52 +0000

I know the breastfeeding party line. It’s natural. It’s easy. I remember throwing a copy of a parenting magazine across the room at about 1 month post-partum when it suggested if women just left well enough alone babies would latch and nurse with no problems at all. At that point I was getting up every 2 hours to pump and bottle feed, was supplementing with formula and was so tired I could barely see straight; the idea that getting your child to nurse was easy was a cruel joke. Sometimes, you know, it isn’t so easy and it doesn’t come naturally and getting to the point of having your child latch on without stress feels like you’ve triumphed over a totally unexpected adversity. (My twins did get to that point, and at 3 months I was able to return the rental pump because my children had finally decided that the traditional milk spigot was a good idea after all. )

This little cutie and his mother had a similar journey. She told me she would watch babies latch on easily and think “Oh, I want that day to come.” And it has. This breastfeeding portrait is her documentation of her triumph.

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February Contest Winner Sneak Peek

Stacie — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:26:55 +0000

You may remember this sweetie, who won the February blog contest and got a 45-minute free session. She was being quite adorable this afternoon playing with violets. I think you’ll like the results of the session – I’ll have your full gallery up later this week.

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Gorgeous Nursing Mother | Connecticut Photographer

Stacie — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:18:46 +0000

I spent the weekend at the Connecticut La Leche League conference taking pictures and selling my breastfeeding picture book and shot a bunch of gorgeous women and children. The conference was fabulous but exhausting; I got to see many old friends and make many new ones. This particular cutie is an old favorite of mine; I shot her when she was an itty bitty thing and I simply cannot believe she is not a newborn anymore.

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