Professional Photographer August 2009 : Page 86
t’s the middle of the night in a hospital delivery room. Nurses are rushing around. There are exhausted new parents, and a tiny baby is fighting its way into the world. Suddenly, everything goes wrong. Exhaustion turns to concern, then worry and finally desperate hope. Everyone with a healthy child there is silently thankful it’s not happening to them. This scene plays out in every hospital around the world. Calling in a photographer doesn’t sound helpful or even reasonable, but it’s often the best thing to do for the grieving parents. The photographer who steps up might be affiliated with the organ- ization Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS), a network of volunteer photographers who will come in at a moment’s notice to capture an intimate memorial portrait of an infant. The tradition might seem strange and morbid to some, but it was com- monplace more than a century ago, when daguerreotypes were used to make “mourning portraits” or “death portraits.” The photographer would often compose an infant as if sleeping, an older child with a beloved doll or
Publication List
