i am overjoyed to finally be able to share this very special photo session!

1. because it means there is a very new, very special little person in the world who, without even having met her (yet), has already taken up a spot in my heart and made it on my list of favorite people and 2. because these are some of my favorite and in my opinion some of the best photos i’ve ever taken. i’m fairly certain the reason #2 is the case is because these are photos from a maternity session i did for one of one of my dearest friends and i could not have been more honored or more excited to take these photographs for her.  i’ve been waiting to share them until the beautiful little baby was born and since she joined the world just a few days ago, it’s finally time to share.

there is something so very special about a maternity session and being able to capture that amazing experience and transformation — to capture quiet moments between a pregnant woman and her growing baby belly; it’s almost an out-of-body experience to be pregnant and to see yourself pregnant and so it is especially an honor to be able to show a woman through the camera how beautiful she is while she is nurturing another life and offering up so much of herself to do so.

and there is of course something extra EXTRA special about being able to take those photographs for someone who means the world to you and whom you’ve known for over 15 years; someone who you’ve shared so much of life’s ups and downs with who has been the kind of friend anyone would be lucky to have and who you know is about to welcome the luckiest little baby in the world because that baby will have her as a mother.

i should mention that i also love and adore the husband and father . . . he should get some credit in this, too! 😉 this new baby is as lucky to have him as a father as to have her as a mother. . . and look how beautiful these two are and how much love they clearly have for each other and had in anticipation of their baby-to-be. i can vouch for the fact that their physical beauty is matched if not outdone by the beauty that is inside.

here are just a few favorite shots from the session; i love that we got to take some in their home where they would soon welcome their little one as well as outside in nature at prospect park where the parents-to-be imagined strolling and playing with their baby-to-be.

thank you my sweet friend for allowing me the honor of taking these photos for you. should there be a day that you can’t remember as well all of the details about what it felt like or looked like to be pregnant or to anticipate the little one’s arrival, i hope these will remind you of how you handled it all with such beauty and grace and how absolutely gorgeous you were (and are!) . . . and one day when she’s older i hope your little one will look to these photos as further evidence of how her arrival was anticipated with so much love, excitement and joy . . . and when she’s a teenager and sure that you’ve ruined her life, maybe she’ll happen upon one of these pictures and remember what a lucky girl she is. . . we can hope, right?!

i love all three of you. xoxo