Christina's Blog

Copperlight Art is participating in the International Charity Model Search to select North America’s Cutest Kid and to raise funds for the non-profit Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation. (NILMDTS.org)  Many of you know that this is a favorite charity of mine and that I hope to be joining on as a volunteer later this year.  The gift these photographers are able to provide is immeasurable and I am happy to be able to support this Foundation in any way I can.  Read on for more details about how this works.  Important note: Images must be submitted to the gallery by the end of March, so if you’re interested in participating, please call the studio or shoot me an email today!

Is your child North America’s Cutest Kid?  We’ll give you the opportunity to prove it!  The grand prize winner will win a $2500 savings bond, a $2500 travel package, and a $100 Target gift card.  The second and third place runners-up each will win a $500 savings bond and a $100 Target gift card.

Model Search Special:

$30 entry fee includes a 30-minute model mini-session and one image submitted to the international gallery.  If you are currently a client of mine and have had a session this year (2011), please let me know if you would like to choose an image from your session to submit (at no additional charge!)

Finalists will be determined by online votes.  Here is where you’ll need to get friends and family involved!  Each vote is $1 (no limit on the amount of votes you can cast), and all proceeds from votes benefit Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS.org).   Every family member/friend who registers their information on the Charity Model Search website will also receive 5 complimentary votes to cast as they please. The top 5 paid votes and the top 5 complimentary votes in each region will move on to the final judging round for a total of 50 finalists.

Grand prize international winner and runners up will be determined from the 50 regional finalists. The winner and runners up are selected by photography experts.

Call 919-597-0259 now to enter your “Cutest Kid” in this exciting contest – images must be submitted by March 31, 2011!

A few weeks ago I had the chance once again to hear Sandy Puc’ speak at an educational event, this time on her Family Photography Tour for 2010. Sandy is an amazing photographer in Littleton, Colorado and one of the most inspirational speakers I have ever heard.  It is an incredibly-powerful thing to listen to someone talk about why they love what they do (in photography or anything else in life) and see their eyes brimming with emotion and truth.  Sandy travels around the country speaking to photographers, telling stories I’m sure she has shared a thousand times by now, and yet you can still hear a catch in her voice and see the tears in her eyes when she talks about the clients she has photographed over the years and the stories they tell her, time after time, about how much those images have come to mean to their families.  Nothing prepares you though for the story of how Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep was founded, how Sandy’s own newborn child stopped breathing briefly in her arms, and how she later came together with the mother who lost the first angel-baby she ever photographed to form this incredible organization.  Infant remembrance photography is not something most people are familiar with, but for those who suffer through the loss of a child, it can give them a beautiful memory to cherish.

I have been considering volunteering with NILMDTS for a while now, but in truth I’ve been afraid that I would be unable to handle the emotion of those moments.  This was my thought again while watching the final slideshow of the evening at Sandy’s talk, and afterwards she stood up and said, “Everyone always says the same thing to me, I don’t know if I could handle it.  I would cry.”  She then said there hasn’t been one NILMDTS session she’s been to where her eyes weren’t filled with tears  – but here’s the thing:  no one expects you to be in that room and *not* feel the pain and the sadness of that moment.  Of course you will, we’re only human.  It was what I needed to hear, I guess.

I took the opportunity the following day to tag along with a volunteer in our area as she went to photograph a gravely-ill baby boy who had just undergone a heart transplant.  A heart transplant!  This tiny little body was surrounded by tubes and wires and machines everywhere, and I helped by pulling up a stool so we could get an image of the mom giving him a kiss on his forehead, and holding wires away from his hand so we could get an image of his big sister holding it.  I watched his chest rise and fall, and saw his mom wrap her arms around her older two children while she stared at the numbers on the machines above his bed, and I was only able to hang on to my emotions by focusing on the photographic aspects of what we were doing.  Only barely.

I spent the rest of that day heavy with the sadness that he may never leave that hospital room and the gratefulness of knowing my own children were living, breathing, laughing, playing… alive.  It was then that I realized no matter how difficult it might be to photograph a sick baby or one already lost, it could never begin to touch what these families are suffering through.  I know these images cannot begin to replace what they have lost, but it is clear to me now more than ever how powerful a gift a photograph can be – with it we can celebrate the love and life we have for our friends and family, even the ones we are only blessed with knowing for a short time.  And sometimes these images allow us to remember that person as they are in our hearts, without the coldness of machines and wires, and that can give a sense of peace that allows us to keep breathing without them.

(If you’d like more information about the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep organization, please visit their website at www.NILMDTS.org.)