The Shoot & Share Contest is an annual photography competition run by shootandshare.com. Last year was the first year that I submitted. I was so pleased that one of my photos made it into the top 20% in the Pets category. This year, 3 of my photos received placement awards! One reached the top 30% percent in the Birth/Newborn category. Another placed in the top 20% in the Creative/Personal Project category. Lastly, one of my photos was a Finalist in the Creative/Personal Project category! This means that my photo made it through all 12 rounds of voting (!!!) and placed within the top 3% of the over 13,000 photos in the category. Last year, my best photo only lasted into round 7 of 12, so this was a pleasant surprise, considering the unbelievable amount of talented photographers who are involved in this contest. It means so much to me to see that I’m improving. I strive to always keep learning and honing my craft every year, so it’s very gratifying to see that it pays off.

Two of the photos were taken for 52Frames photo challenges. This is a reminder to me to bring more of the creativity that I use for my personal art work into the photos that I shoot for clients. Those two photos were both composite photos, which I love to do, so that's also very nice to see. It makes me want to do more and more of them. 

Thanks again to shootandshare.com for putting on this awesome competition. I hope I continue to improve. I'm looking forward to next year!
Here are my images that received awards!

There were whispers of a possible upcoming kitten yoga class....Stay tuned for more!

I’m very excited to announce that my sister is having a baby! We are all so happy that we’re going to be welcoming a new member to the family. We are made even happier because it was a very very hard road getting to this point.

​Lisa and her husband Will started trying for a family in November of 2015. The first time Lisa told me she was pregnant was in October of 2016. I was overjoyed. Unfortunately, in December we got the heartbreaking news that Lisa had suffered a miscarriage. It hit our family hard. It was painful to see my sister going through something so unimaginably devastating.

In May of 2017, we found out Lisa was pregnant again, only to get the crushing news in June that she had had a second miscarriage. Compounding Lisa's sorrow was the fact that several close friends and family members gave birth around the time of both miscarriages, the fact that I'm a newborn photographer, and the fact that Lisa works at an OB-Gyn office. Every day, more salt was poured in her wounds. She was very close to giving up on having a family, but Will convinced her not to give up hope, and I'm so happy he did.

Her doctors began doing exhaustive testing and found that she has two different blood clotting disorders that caused her miscarriages. She now has to take aspirin every day for the rest of her life, and has to inject herself in the stomach with medication every day for the rest of her pregnancy.

Lisa became pregnant in November of 2017, and was understandably a wreck for the first many weeks. She didn't even tell our parents that she was pregnant until she was 15 weeks. She's at 18 weeks now and is still very hesitant to share her news because of how she was burned twice before. Every impending appointment fills her with dread, only to be relieved right after that the baby is perfectly healthy. The worry will probably never go away, but she is making a valiant effort to be positive and to share her news with the world.

Yesterday, I went to her doctor's appointment with her and saw the baby move on the sonogram for the first time. It was an incredible experience. A rainbow baby is a baby that is born after parents suffer a miscarriage or still birth, because a rainbow comes after a storm. I cannot wait to meet this rainbow baby and document its entire life.
We started the process with a photo shoot with my dog nephew Ash, and a few photos to commemorate the struggle that Lisa has been through.

I got Lisa's permission to share her story. She and I both think that miscarriage is a thing that should be talked about more. Most women are silent about their struggles with miscarriage and infertility, making it an isolating and even more painful experience. If you know someone who is dealing with this horrible situation, please try to be there for them in any way you can. It's so easy to celebrate someone's joys with them, but it's so much harder to comfort them in their sorrows. Let them know you're thinking of them and ask them how they are. Even if they don't want to talk, they'll know that you care, and that can make a world of difference. If you yourself are going through it, please know that you aren't alone, and try not to give up hope for a rainbow baby of your own.