Today I want to celebrate the births I photographed in 2011. What a year! I learn so much from each and every birth I attend. A few highlights from this year: watching my dear childhood friend give birth to her daughter at home with incredible poise and power (a VBAC!), photographing my first completely natural hospital birth (but not the last!), having TWO repeat birth clients, seeing a couple wait (for what seemed like) an hour before discovering the sex of their baby, MISSING my first birth (she was born on the sidewalk in front of the hospital while dad and I were parking our cars), a gorgeous labor at sunset with an incredible view, my first C-section (incredible!), the fastest first-time labor ever (1cm to baby in less than three hours), and the birth of another dear friend’s THIRD baby. I mean, that’s a lot of cool stuff, right?

Now on to the task at hand. I need to choose ONE image to submit to www.birthphotographers.com (yes, that’s me marveling over my Wally in the rotating images). If you are looking for a birth photographer in your area (because you live somewhere besides Seattle), this is a great resource for you. Anyway, they are having a contest to choose the best birth image of 2011. There will be MAJOR competition, and I need to choose just one image to represent my work in the contest. How in the world could I choose just one? That’s where you come in. I’ve narrowed things down to the images below. This is not a contest where you get all your friends to vote for your image because you’ll win a prize. This is me asking you for your feedback on which image I should send in. They are judging on technical merit, but most importantly on EMOTION. Please leave a comment on this post telling me which image I should send and WHY. One random commenter will receive a $100 credit to One Tree Photography to use themselves (during 2012) or to give to a friend. I’ll let random.org choose the comment. One comment per person, please. Voting/commenting will close at 5pm Friday, February 10th.

Ultimately, I will be making the decision about which image to send, but I really do appreciate your feedback. The family whose image I do submit will receive a complimentary session to be used for their child’s first birthday. OK, are we clear now?  The images are numbered directly above each image for your reference. I love each and every one of these shots, which makes this decision SO tough. Thanks for your help!

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Random winner number two is:
Lucky Sara!

Tracy and Sara, I’ll send an email to you and we can talk about what kind of hat you’d like.

And now for the winner of the 16×24 gallery wrapped canvas, the highest honor One Tree Photography can bestow, THE FAVORITE image of 2011. You guessed it: July!
Sweet-cheeked Penelope rocked that purple hat and practically posed herself. Congratulations, Angel and Eric! I’ll be contacting you about your prize! Thank you again to EVERYONE who voted, and to ALL my fabulous clients. 2011 was THE BEST.

You may have been wondering why there weren’t any BIRTH images in the contest this year. Well, birth images and portrait images are so different, I didn’t want them to compete. So now I’ll get to work on my favorite BIRTH images of 2011. Stay tuned…

I’ve already made some AGONIZING choices, so below you will see one image from each month of the year. Wow, was it hard to choose! Now it’s your turn. Vote for your FAVORITE image of 2011 by commenting on this post. You may only choose ONE image, and you may only vote ONE time. But of course you can have all your friends and family and facebook pals vote as well. The month the image represents is listed ABOVE the image. Oh, and there are prizes! The winning shot will receive a 16×24 GALLERY WRAPPED CANVAS of an image of their choice from their winning session. And TWO lucky commenters will be chosen at random (using random.org) to receive a custom hat made by the one and only Trevor!

Voting begins NOW and will close at 5pm Tuesday, January 31st. Any comments received after that time will not be included in the random drawing or in the final counts.  I’m sure there are other fine printish things I should say, but you all know how this works, right?

One last piece of business before we get started. I will be posting new 2012 prices for sessions and collections February 1st. If you know that you would like a session in 2012, but would like to take advantage of 2011′s lower prices, you may do so by booking before February 1st. Even if you don’t know exactly when you’d like your session to take place, you may reserve a spot with 2011 pricing NOW and then choose a date when you feel more ready. Send me an email right away if you’d like to take advantage of these last days of 2011 prices.

OK, I think that’s all the business for the moment. Good luck to all of you and happy voting!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Maya showed her serious side quite a bit, but she really got a kick out of that girl in the window. Jeff will probably be upset that I didn’t photoshop out the slobber on the window, but I think it adds to the charm of the shot. Sorry, Jeff.

I LOVE this red hooded sweater, and Maya wears it well. Yay for bare baby feet, even in January! And we ended our session with a bath in mama and daddy’s big tub. Maya is going to be a swimmer, for sure. She dunked herself a couple of times, but didn’t seem to care. Babies in baths are the BEST, but a close second is a baby fresh from the bath. Such a good way to end a session!

Carrie and Jeff, it was wonderful to get to see you in your home. Maya is a lucky, lucky little girl. Thanks for having me over!

Why that particular Starbucks? A. The drive thru is a must with two little kids. B. This particular store makes the BEST chais. I’ll avoid some Starbucks because they make chais that taste off. When I told this to a friend who used to be a barista, she had some theories about why that is. And with so much riding on my chai of the day, I can’t afford for it to be off. So when at all possible we go to 196th. C. The baristas know us. They call us the Whole Milkersons (because we all order drinks with whole milk) and are very friendly.

But one barista in particular, Amber, really stands out. In my mind, she is what makes the Starbucks on 196th my haven. You can hear the smile in her voice as she greets us by name when we pull up to order. No matter where she is in the store, if she’s working, she pops over to the window to say hi to us. When we get out drinks, each of our names is written with a smiley face on our cup. Amber makes my day better, every time I see her. And of course, she makes the most deliciously foamy chai.

So I want to give a little something back to Amber. A little bit of the happiness that she’s given us. Amber, thank you for being you. I’d like to give you a family photo session and a DVD of all the images, and celebrate you and the wonderful person you are. Give me a call or send me an email and we’ll get your session all set up.  Merry Christmas!

Oh, and here’s an image I shared over on my One Frame a Day blog, but I thought it was appropriate here.

I wrote quite a lot of Jordan’s birth story here, so here I’ll just share a few things I loved about this birth.

• A prepared mama. Jordan enjoyed and was present for every minute of her pregnancy (at least that’s how it seemed). She kept a blog of letters to her unborn son that will be such a gift when he’s older. How cool to know what your mama was thinking while pregnant with you!  Jordan did her research, chose a midwife (Christine Thain) and doula (Kristin Dibeh) and learned all she could about birth. She was ready.

• A natural timeline. Her water broke early Saturday morning, and labor didn’t really pick up until later that evening. And then it stopped the next morning. If Jordan had been under the care of an OB, she more than likely would have been admitted and induced. But because she was cared for by a midwife, her body was allowed to do what it needed to do to get ready for the big event Sunday night.

• A fabulous support team. Jordan’s mom, Korbi, and her best friend, Annie, were constantly at Jordan’s side. They stroked her hair, gave her hugs, and were a powerfully positive presence in the room. Ty had to leave for a bit to take their dogs out, but he returned just as Jordan started pushing, and that was the perfect time for him to be front and center. Jordan held on to Ty as she squatted in the pool, and it was obvious that he was giving her strength. I could go on and on about what each person offered to Jordan. The bottom line is that she was surrounded by love.

• Fast progression. When she arrived at the birth center and was checked she was less than two centimeters dilated. Three hours later…baby!

• Champagne! Birth is triumph and celebration and I love when the birth team can toast together. That’s a good birth day!

And now here are a few images from Wyatt’s birth day.

And here you have the whole story: