Award Winning Baby Photographer | NAPCP International Image Competition 2019 Recognition of Merit

While I was away in Portugal last week, I got super exciting news – both of the images I entered in the 2019 NAPCP International Image Competition received merit awards – I’m an award winning baby photographer!  I love NAPCP, and I loooooove both of these images.  I don’t mean to be too braggy, but I’m going to add these to my growing collection of award winning images – in fact, it might be about time I give this little collection of award winning images a page of its own, don’t you think?  (Great idea, Jaye.  I’ll link to it HERE when I get around to it).

Here they are … my 2019 merit winners:

Recognition feels really good, guys.  And when I look at these two particular winners, I have a couple of observations.

First, neither of these images would be in my portfolio, my collection of award winning images, OR in the homes of these two wonderful families (I love you guys!) had I not developed my Baby Plan a few years ago.  You see, I KNOW that a session with me is a significant investment, and I KNOW that even those families who are committed to hiring me once a year are going to be tempted to capture that fleeting newborn stage and the cute one year photos.  It’s tempting for many families, I KNOW, to skip over that delicious sitting stage.  That stage where babies’ arms are so fat that they hang over their wrist creases.  That stage where babies are just about able to sit up or push up and are in gleeful LOVE with this new vantage point.  The stage where babies are not moving yet, so every messy little meal becomes another roll or crease or butt dimple.  And their personalities are just emerging and they have not yet tasted the forbidden fruit of wild and reckless movement.  So most of their energy goes toward smiling and shooting adoring gazes at their people. Babies this age are happy.  They’re delicious.  They’re insanely photogenic.  Award-winningly photogenic, even, as it turns out.

Anyway.  In case that rant didn’t clue you in, this “sitting” stage – anywhere from about 6-10 months – is and always has been my favorite age to photograph babies with their families.  And my Baby Plan encourages my families to capture that age by offering pretty significant perks and collection discounts when they hire me to capture baby at least three times in baby’s first year.  So.  Yay for the Baby Plan!

My second observation is about organizations like NAPCP – the National Association of Professional Child Photographers.  Are you a professional child or family photographer?  This observation’s for you.  I’ve been involved with NAPCP since about 2013.  At that time, as I was exploring NAPCP and similar organizations available to work-at-home loners like me, I wondered if the cost of memberships like this were worth it.  I’ve never been one to feel terribly connected in organizations whose sole presence/interaction was online.  What did NAPCP have to offer?  Since, then, I’ve learned that NAPCP provides many opportunities for real-life connection with other photographers, both online and in person.  In fact, I’ve been an Ambassador for NAPCP for the last five years or so, and have been responsible for local gatherings that have allowed me to form in person connections with my local photography community – connections that have been invaluable to my business and my sanity as a work-from-home loner.  That’s everything, guys!

Also nice are the ample opportunities to shine in image competitions and in their monthly magazine, Inspired.  (This is getting long, so I’m going to share about my most recent feature in another blog post! ;))