With Love and Gratitude, Always: My Farewell to Birth Photography

Dear Birth Photography,

There is so much I want to say to you, and even now, after years apart, I still feel the emotions rise up when I think of you. You were my first great love in photography. You were the beginning of everything for me,  not just in my career, but in my understanding of how powerful and sacred storytelling can be.

For many years, you were my constant companion. I carried my camera into dimly lit rooms, sterile hospital halls, cozy birth centers, and quiet homes where candles flickered and soft music played in the background. I was invited into the most private and powerful moments of people’s lives. I witnessed life begin over fifty times, and each time, it felt like witnessing a miracle. There was no getting used to it. Every birth was different. Every story was different. Every mother, every family, every cry, every breath held its own rhythm, its own energy, its own truth.

Being a birth photographer was never just about the images. It was about holding space. It was about knowing when to step back and when to step in. It was about moving silently through hours of labor, capturing the sweat, the tears, the grip of a partner’s hand, the curl of a newborn’s fingers. I learned how to feel the room without speaking. I learned to listen deeply, not just with my ears but with my whole presence. I learned what strength looks like in its rawest, most vulnerable form.

I remember the late nights, the 3 a.m. phone calls, the rushed drives through empty streets with adrenaline pulsing through my chest. I remember the quiet moments sitting in my car afterward, tears on my cheeks, heart full, exhausted and grateful beyond words. I remember walking into birth spaces not knowing how long I would be there, how things would unfold, or how the story would end,  only that I had been asked to bear witness.

And I did. With all my heart.

When the world changed in 2020 and the doors to birth spaces began to close, I felt a grief I could not explain. It was more than the loss of work. It was the loss of a calling. For a while, I held onto the hope that things would return to how they were. But the truth is, everything changed. And I did too.

I tried to pivot, at first slowly, then with more intention. I leaned into other forms of photography, families, couples, elopements,  but nothing felt quite like you. There was something so uniquely transformative about being invited into the beginning of someone’s journey into motherhood. To see that threshold moment where a woman becomes not just a parent but a new version of herself. It was always humbling. Always awe-inspiring. And I carry those images in my heart, not just on hard drives or galleries.

Over time, something unexpected began to happen. I found myself pulled to a different kind of beauty,  the natural kind, the kind that lives in mountains and ocean air and quiet forest trails. I began spending more and more time in Acadia National Park, a place I had always admired but never truly known. The landscape there began to speak to me. It reminded me of the same quiet reverence I felt in birth spaces. The mist hanging low in the morning, the soft crunch of gravel under hiking boots, the golden light spilling through the trees, it all began to feel like its own kind of beginning.

In Acadia, I met people from all over the country. Couples coming to elope with the sea as their witness. Families chasing the last light of summer. Travelers finding peace among the granite cliffs and evergreen trees. I began to fall in love with the stories unfolding there, too. Not the beginning of life, perhaps, but the beginning of a new chapter, a new adventure, a new way of seeing.

It felt different, but it also felt familiar. There was still emotion. There was still vulnerability. There was still a connection. And most of all, there was still love. The kind of love that makes people cry when they see a photograph that truly reflects who they are and what they felt in that moment. The kind of love I used to feel in delivery rooms now echoing through quiet forests and rocky shores.

And so, slowly, I let myself shift. I let myself build something new. I allowed myself to fall in love again, this time with a place, and with a new way of documenting people’s journeys. It hasn’t replaced you, not really. Nothing ever could. But it has given me a different kind of peace, one that fits the season of life I am in now.

Being on-call for so many years taught me discipline and dedication, but it also wore me down. The unpredictability, the missed holidays, the constant readiness,  it was beautiful and it was hard. Eventually, I had to choose a rhythm that allowed for rest. A pace that gave me room to breathe and explore other parts of myself.

Still, I want you to know I think of you often. I see a mother holding her newborn in the woods during a family session and feel that familiar pull in my chest. I hear the soft sigh of a baby sleeping and remember the hush of the delivery room. I see strength and softness in new ways now, but the memory of those birth stories still lives within me.

I don’t know what the future holds. Life is always unfolding, always surprising. Maybe one day I will find my way back to you. Maybe the right season will come again, and I will pick up my camera and step back into that sacred space with new eyes and an open heart.

Until then, I carry everything you taught me. The patience. The reverence. The courage. The quiet knowing. You shaped me. You gave me purpose. You made me a storyteller.

With all my heart,
Thank you.