Families

Birth is an initiation, and pregnancy is the beginning of this rite of passage. As a Seattle motherhood photographer, I document women during this becoming.

The First Shamans Were Birthing Women: On birth as initiation, the descent of labor, and the woman who crosses between worlds to bring back a soul

There is a moment in a birthing room that everyone in it recognizes and almost no one names. The woman who was speaking a moment ago has stopped. Her eyes have gone somewhere the rest of us cannot follow, unfocused and turned inward, fixed on a horizon that isn’t in the room. The people who […]

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Fall family sessions near Seattle

Fall Family Sessions Near Seattle: Choosing the Time, the Place, and the Palette

Autumn is the season I wait for all year as a Seattle family photographer because fall family sessions near Seattle carry a magic all their own. Something happens to the light here in the Pacific Northwest when the summer finally loosens its grip, some softening and lowering and going gold that makes even an ordinary

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How developmental psychology shapes the way I document families during family and motherhood photography sessions.

How Developmental Psychology Shapes the Way I Photograph Families

  Before I ever held a camera in a professional way, I spent years learning to watch children. I earned a doctorate in developmental psychology, with a focus on infancy, early childhood, and the long evolutionary story of how small humans come to know themselves. Then I spent seasons of my life as a forest

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There's a word for the seismic identity shift of becoming a mother: matrescence. On the grief, the love, the becoming, and being seen in the middle of it.

Matrescence: The Becoming No One Named for You

There is a moment, somewhere in the early weeks or months of motherhood, when a woman catches sight of herself in the mirror and does not entirely recognize the person looking back. The face is familiar enough, more tired perhaps, softer or sharper than before, but something behind the eyes has shifted in a way

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