Posts Tagged ‘Breastfeeding Portraits’

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.

(I’ve realized that Facebook doesn’t generate a “there was a link from here” comment for whatever twisted reason of Internet logic so if you do post on Facebook please leave a separate comment telling me that. Blogs, websites, these things all generate a “this post was mentioned on….” but not Facebook. Why? Why?)

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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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Meg: Nursing Mother

July 7, 2010

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.

Connecticut Film Portraits of Babies and Children

Film Portraits in Connecticut

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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And VOILA. Having harassed asked people to tell me which were their favorite of my breastfeeding images I present the finished poster. I’ll be doing a final proofreading tomorrow to avoid embarrassing typos.

How embarrassing? I brought a stack of free postcards to the La Leche League conference in April touting the wonders of breasfeeding. I’d like to avoid that this time.

Breastfeeding Portraits in Connecticut

SO I’ll be doing a final proofread then send the file out to the printer. I’ll be giving them out to local breastfeeding professionals. You can order a personal copy as long as my extras hold out.

Downloadable PDF:
Please note that this is made freely available for you to print and distribute at will and am trusting in the basic goodness of people to use it as intended. Please respect that I retain copyright to these images and do not use them individually on your web site or in your materials even for the very best of causes. If you make the download available on your on web site please do it by linking back to this, original, post.

This file is very large so that you can make a very good print – you should be able to send this to a professional printer if you desire and have no issues with resolution, or just print it on the laser printer!

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

nursing in public

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This was such a fun conference to display at. This is actually the second year I’ve had a table in the Hall of Exhibitors (which sounds a bit more impressive than it actually was) and I had a blast. There were cute babies and toddlers everywhere, it’s a crowd that likes a baby picture and I got to talk to so many fascinating people, give out breastfeeding advocacy magnets with one of my breastfeeding portraits on it to nurses, doctors and WIC personnel and show off my newborn portraits and children’s portraiture to everybody.

My display:
Cute Reasons You Should Book a Portraiture Session Now

Some other exhibitors. Click on their snapshots to go visit their web sites. All are fabulous women who had some great things out for sale. I must have one of Herrickfield Designs felted bags and if I ever have another baby (hah) I will be getting Bean Tree Baby to set me up with a wardrobe of carriers to get me through.


Sarah Herrick of Herrickfield Designs Needle Felting

Bean Tree Baby at the La Leche League Conference

Erica and Keith Grossman, Bradley Childbirth Educators in Manchester, CT

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OK, you’re out of luck for March. Unless you have a newborn March is full, full, full. Actually, March is full even if you DO have a newborn but I do always try very hard to squeeze in itty-bitties before they aren’t quite so itty or bitty anymore. But, really, the month is booked.

Now, April is shaping up to be a busy month too. I have some pre-booked newborns waiting to come out, the La Leche League conference, which I adore, and a day of mini sessions which means that, sure, you can get a 30 minute session for free but means that there are that many fewer days for regular sessions. All of which is to say that if you want to book a regular session in April I recommend doing it quickly. Click HERE to book; currently available dates are listed in the drop-down box on the ordering page.

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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?

breastfeeding portraits by stacie turner photography

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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.

ct breastfeeding picture by stacie turner photography

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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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!

Breastfeeding portrait Connecticut fine art portraits

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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