Making of a Denver Maternity and Newborn Photographer
I love hearing the stories of my people.
To really look at these beautiful souls with love, to hear their story and feel their journey. To know the story of their lives unfolding.
Today I want to share my story.
During this pandemic, right here, right now in Denver
this city I love and call home. I celebrate you. I celebrate the why behind how
I became a maternity and newborn photographer that has never been pregnant.
It is an honor to support women and families during this special time of transition and I feel so grateful for this gift.
Doing this work brings me so much joy and I feel so aligned on a soul level with this beautiful exchange with new families in my community.
My story was originally published by Voyage Denver, here it is for your reading pleasure and enjoyment. I type this beyond humbled that you’d take the time to read a few chapters of my story.
All the love,
JJ xx
Since I was a little girl, I’ve always enjoyed pouring creative intuition into my play space. You could find me clipping magazine photos, style inspiration, patterns, textures and color swatches, compiling them into these lovely stapled together computer paper books. I adored styling Barbie fashion shows and strutting them down a runway – I even recorded my own outfit commentary on cassette. Ask me what my dream gig was, I would likely have told you that I desired to become BOTH a news anchor AND a swimsuit model when I grew up. Ha! I look back and ask myself what sort of media I was being exposed to…but that’s a whole different side rant. As I matured, I realized that human connection is what I crave most in life and within my work. It engages and feeds me, pushes me to bring my best, most present self.
So, side note confession. I honestly had no idea what I was doing when I became an entrepreneur. I knew it was in my blood-my grandfather was a tractor implement owner in Iowa. Yet the vast majority of my family chose to work for corporations. Looking at my career path, I’ve been fortunate to interact and work alongside so many glorious women, regardless of context.
The achiever mindset within beckoned me down the corporate path and I began working for a fortune 50 company while earning my bachelors degree in marketing. I began my “corporate career” as a track roller frame assembler in a manufacturing facility which exposed me to some wonderful women that took me under their motherly wing. I gained insight not only on assembly processes and techniques but also the warmth presence in this community of women. Perhaps the most enlightened I’ve felt due to proximity to other women in a corporate setting was found in legal services and trademarks. Working under a dozen attorneys, I learned an extensive amount about trademarks, copyrights and intellectual property. I was exposed to high powered corporate female attorneys that were empathic and intuitive. I was in awe.
I continued working in the corporate world making stops in public affairs and logistics planning before becoming a photographer
As my career shifted in 2010, I challenged myself to look within. In full exploration of my true calling, I began to truly investigate
What do I truly crave to create with my life?
How do my unique skills set, gifts and talents that I’ve been given culminate to offer something impactful in the world?
I realized that it isn’t swimsuit modeling or working for a news network that inspires me….not even working for a fortune 50 company. My calling is supporting women.
Marinating in the potential of truly coming alongside my clients in impactful ways, I observed so many women shifting from wives to mothers, attempting to get pregnant, struggling. Working to cope with difficult pregnancies or postpartum depression, these women, this time in their lives, this is what inspired me to do the work I do today. This is the work that I know I feel beckoned to.
It is my true honor and gift to come alongside other women in Colorado as they welcome their babies to the world. It fulfills and feeds my soul in ways I can’t properly articulate. I often indicate that I live vicariously through my clients – I’ve never been pregnant and I don’t desire to be a mother. This often shocks my clients and if I look within, as I’ve gotten curious, I’ve asked myself what it is about working with newborns and pregnant people that beckon me and warm my heart. I feel the answers came to me when I look back at my upbringing and my mother’s experience during pregnancy and postpartum. My beautiful mama was a teenage mom her first go around with my older sister. While she waited seven years to bring me into the world, I know that she struggled deeply, just as most moms struggle. I know that my mother, the woman who created me, encountered postpartum depression. Perhaps at the core of it all, this is my way of connecting with this woman who was struggling. A healing of ancestral wounds or sorts.
I began connecting with my camera and began to see that my DSLR was the gateway to career fulfillment and supporting women in transition. I also feel a sense of generational pride, twofold, really. While healing the maternal wounds present, also channeling my grandfather’s entrepreneurial vibes.
Pregnancy is beautiful and miraculous. A special gift, worthy of documentation and celebration. I am a pregnancy and baby photographer. But really, I am an advocate and supporter of women stepping into the fullness of their humanity and embracing their human presence, with the ability to see abundance in their existence.
All the love to all the women who’ve trusted me to come alongside them as they become mothers.
