(I am having some issues with the format of this post, so I apologize if it is cutting off the menu to the side.) 

As a photographer and now a mother, I wanted to post about the NILMDTS  fund drive that is taking place this month and next.  Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep is an organization I have been a member of for 2 1/2 years, and is very dear to my heart.  This organization is dedicated to giving grieving parents memories of their child that has passed.  I have had the honor of photographing families who have suffered the tragedy of losing a child and giving them something that can never be remade - photographs of their beautiful baby.  It is not easy, getting calls about a birth that the parents know will end sadly, or meeting a family who have a baby at home that they know will not make it to its first birthday.  Regardless of whether the baby is miscarried, stillborn, or was with the parents for a few hours, days, weeks, or months, these images are so important.

If you or someone you know would like more information on this organization, please visit the website by clicking any of the links below.  If you or someone you know experiences a loss, please, call me.  I am available any time of the day or night for these sessions.

With the Month of October being recognized as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, The Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation holds its Annual Fund Drive for six weeks starting in mid-September and ending in October.President Ronald Reagan enacted Proclamation 5890 in October of 1988 to recognize that each year, approximately a million pregnancies in the United States alone end in miscarriage, stillbirth, or the death of a newborn child.  Reagan stated, “A national observance offers us the opportunity to increase our understanding of the great tragedy involved in the deaths of unborn or newborn babies.  It also enables us to consider how, as individuals and communities, we can meet the needs of bereaved parents and family members… “  To read the full Proclamation signed by Reagan, CLICK HERE. If you are in a place to make even a small contribution to NILMDTS, please know that doing so will continue to allow the organization to provide improved resources, training, communication, and other tools necessary in support of our amazing contingent of professional photographers who provide the gift of free remembrance portraiture to families in need. Our next project we are working on is an online, interactive webinar version of our Formal NILMDTS Training taught by Co-Founder Sandy Puc’ allowing anyone in any country with access to a computer to complete the course online.  Donations help make programs like this a reality!   Your Donations Support the Organization in Many Ways - * By supporting the continued education of our volunteer photographers * By allowing us to further our outreach to hospitals and hospices across the world * By offsetting the costs associated with outreach efforts including Formal NILMDTS Traingin Seminars * By supporting the Family Forum which creates a productive and supportive haven for healing * By supporting the Photographers’ Forum which provides a helpful environment for our member photographers to express their feelings and receive advice on the various issues that they face in this noble work * By supporting the day to day operations of our Headquarters Offices

On Wednesday, August 6, 2008, Maddox entered the world!  I went into labor in the middle of the night, but could never have made it through the entire labor without the help of an epidural, and the incredible support of my husband, Travis.  The experience made me fall in love with him all over again, and every day when I see him interacting and caring for our little boy, I am amazed at how lucky I am to have them both.

 Meet Maddox.  Born at 1:14pm, he weighed 8#1oz and was 20″ long.  He is in perfect health, but is so small that he doesn’t even fit into his newborn outfits!  He is absolutely amazing, beautiful, handsome, and quite simply, perfect.  We took these in the hospital when he was two days old, using natural light from the windows, just before we got him dressed to go home.  Ignore the little pressure lines on his arms, he had been sleeping and was all dented up from the blanket and his little shirt.  :)

I love how the depth of field is so shallow on this, and the focus point lands on the eye hidden under his hand.

For someone so tiny, he has huge feet!

He was not happy about being undressed! 

He did calm down after a bit, though!

He is truly incredible.  Thank you again to everyone for your support and love over these last few months!  I am sure this won’t be the last you see of him on here! :)

I got a little too excited at Walmart tonight when I realized that the milk expires when I do!  Travis just rolled his eyes at me.  It is totally silly, but it kind of feels like a milestone.  I am starting to feel like I will be pregnant forever, so seeing that milk is set to expire on and after my due date gives me hope!!

The images show up rather small on my blog, so if you would like to see them a little bigger and with more detail, go to to my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wendiandtravis/sets/72157603210251836/

I noticed the collages are also a little soft.  I’m trying out a new program to create these in and save myself time, and for some reason it reduces the quality of the images.  I’m not going to change these, but will not be using the program in the future, so that no sharpness or quality is lost!

One nice thing about meeting a bunch of photographers is that one ends up with really nice shots of themselves!  One night several of us decided to start handing off our cameras to each other to do headshots.  I believe my camera made it into the hands of the extremely talented Jeanann Wilkerson, and I must say, she made me look good! :)

On Sunday, a handful of us traveled to the marketplace in Tonalá.  Wow!   It was amazing!  From food to clothes, Christmas decor to glass blowers, candles and knick-knacks, jewelry - you name it, you can find it at Tonalá!  I picked up a lot of little things for home, including the most unique metal photographer sculpture.  We spent a couple hours walking around and still didn’t see everything there was to see.  I had homemade helado de fresas (strawberry ice cream), pomegranate seeds, fresh meats and cheeses, and a yummy lunch at a local cafe.  We conversed with the locals and bartered with the vendors.  It has been a few years since I’ve had to speak the language on a daily basis, and I was amazed at how easily it came back to me!  (in case you all didn’t know, I was a Spanish minor in college for a couple semesters before finding my real passion, and have studied the language since my mom first enrolled me in a class in the 5th grade).

Going to the market.  On the left, that is a house, sort of.  Yes, someone was living there.  In the middle, the line of cars waiting to get into the market.  On the right, ruins.

Here are a few from the Tonalá Market.

Yes, you have to pay to use the restrooms.  :)

On the way home, we stopped at this beautiful cemetary and walked around.  The way they honor their dead is admirable.

The following are a few from the different pueblos that we visited.  The people were so friendly and welcoming, and I am especially thankful to the family that let me use their bathroom during our shoot.  I drink a lot of water!

In the one on the bottom left, I asked the two men if I could “tomo un fotografia” of them, and they scowled and shook their heads no.  I gave them a smile and asked “con mi?” (with me?) and they got these big smiles on their faces and scooted over to make room for me!  It was so funny!  Look how happy they are!

Now that I am done shooting for the summer, I figured what better time than to sit and go through my images from Mexico and figure out what to blog?  It wasn’t an easy task, but I narrowed it down to my, oh, 100 or so favorites!

I’ll split this up into a couple different posts so that it isn’t totally overwhelming! :)

My trip started out in St. Louis, where I hopped a plane to Houston and then to Guadalajara.  It was a lot of waiting!

I’m not going to be chronological here, and instead will just share a bunch of collages of highlights of the trip.  First, the hacienda!

We stayed at La Hacienda El Carmen, a beautiful resort tucked away about an hour and a half outside of Guadalajara in Ahualulco del Mercado, Jalisco.  It was breath-taking and amazing!  I shared a suite with Erin Glaser, a talented photographer from California.

Our suite, the Alcoba Dona Ampara (I can’t figure out how to do tildes on here!)

There were real, live peacocks roaming the grounds, and they were so entertaining!  I spent several minutes during lunch one day playing with this guy, who kept hiding behind the ferns and peaking out at me, trying to figure out where to go to get around me.

To answer a few commonly asked questions:

-Yes, I am still pregnant.
-I am due August 14.
-Yes, I am ready to have this baby!

:)

Not much longer!  If you have called recently, and gotten my voicemail, you’ve heard that I have officially started my photography “maternity leave”, and with the exception of events already booked, will not be taking new clients until October 1st.  I check my email almost daily, but it may take me a bit longer to get back to you as I’m usually exhausted by the time I get to it.  Office phone messages are checked once or twice a week and will be returned as soon as possible.  I almost always have my cell phone on me, so that is still the best way to reach me, but again, it may take a little longer to return messages.  If I am having the baby, I can promise I will not be answering my phone.  :)

Once October comes around, I’ll be back in full swing.  I’ll try to post pictures of our little boy when he gets here, too!

The last weekend of October, I am co-hosting a small photography workshop in Burlington, and we are looking for subjects to photograph.  I am in charge of finding bridal models, and wanted to come here before going to the pros as I have for other conferences and workshops.

If you are interested in some unique bridal portraits in your own dress, doing a “trash the dress” session, or just getting dolled up and having some fun, please shoot me an email at contact@inspiredimagesbywendi.com.  If you don’t want to use your own dress, or do not have one, we do have access to a few.  We are also looking for a couple “grooms”.  Grooms are just asked to show up in a nice suit, tux is not required, just nice pants and jacket if possible.

Interested parties, please send me the following information:
-Name, address, phone, and email
-Age (you must be over 18, this is simply for release purposes, no risque images will be taken)
-Size or measurements (note that wedding gowns do not always match the same size as your street clothes; if you do not know what your wedding dress size is, and we select you to model, I can arrange to get you sized)
-Any prior modeling experience (previous exp. not required)
-Why you are the perfect person for this!
-A picture, if possible

What we will provide:
-Hair and makeup
-Wedding gown, if needed
-Food and drinks

What is asked of you:
-Positive attitude and lots of smiles, and the ability to not smile if asked! :)
-Ability to take direction
-Patience
-3-4 hours of time, possibly more once we figure out the timeline for hair/makeup

As a thank you for your time, you will receive a set number of edited images from each photographer in attendance, either in the form of prints, images on disc, or in a small album (this will be determined once we know how many photographers will be in attendance).

I look forward to hearing from you!

Last night, I was motivated.  I thought about doing dishes (because my husband has been slacking this week), laundry (because I’ve been slacking this week), sewing some material that I bought two months ago into a blanket for baby, unpack more stuff for my gallery, organize the closet in the nursery, pack my hospital bag, and a few dozen other things.

What did I do instead?

I started updating my website!

I know, long time coming, right?

While on maternity leave, I will actually be working with a web designer to completely revamp my site into something truly custom and “me”, but until then, I updated the galleries on my site with some more recent work that speaks more to the style.  Devan and certain blog-stalkers (no names!) have been on my case for a while now because it had been way too long since I’d done anything on it, and even though I had everything sorted into files on my laptop, they hadn’t actually gotten up yet.

It isn’t quite done, I was having issues with my FTP client last night uploading everything, so the homepage slideshow isn’t loading yet, and it took me a couple hours to get it to upload the correct size of vertical images for the galleries, but those are at least up.  Minor updates were made to the info pages, too.

I hope to get the homepage fixed tonight, so patience, please!  In the meantime, puruse the galleries, let me know if something isn’t loading right, and enjoy!

 And whatever you do, don’t tell Travis (my husband) that I crawled into bed literally seconds before his alarm went off to leave for work this morning.  He has to get up at 2:40 to drive to work in Illinois (he is carpooling with a coworker), and I hadn’t even gotten my pillows adjusted and blanket over me when his alarm went off.  :)  He gets after me for staying up too late, but I don’t like stopping in the middle of things!  Besides, I likely would have been laying awake in bed anyway since I just can’t get comfy anymore!  :)

Speaking of patience, I am patiently waiting to have this baby.  Today is 36 weeks, which means if I go into labor, I could be delivered!!!  I was showing progress at my appointment on Tuesday, but the docs think I can make it quite a while longer.  Travis and I are hoping before the end of the month, but aren’t holding our breaths.  Last night while I was working on the site, Baby Boy was pushing and playing and keeping me entertained, and I will really miss that!