NowILayMeDowntoSleep

I was in a camera store (remember those?) and got to talking with another customer and he was an affiliate for the charity. He told me about it and my first question to him is just what EVERYONE asks, "How can you do that?" His answer is no MY answer - that you have a job to do and you are concentrating on doing it right. The emotion of the moment has no place in getting the images.

I mentioned to the lady that cuts my hair (what there is of it) that I was considering doing this and she came around in front of the chair, pointed her finger at me, and said, "You need to do this. I lost my son 20 years ago and they never let me see him.I would give anything to have what you can give those parents."

So here I am, 100+ sessions later.

This is a standard test that we give for our digital retouch volunteers, and I'm sorry you had a negative experience looking at how long it would take. We have stringent requirements for both our photographers and retouchers to ensure that the gift we are giving to families are of the highest quality. This picture will be something they will cherish for generations. Many of our families say that if there was a fire, the pictures would be the first thing they would grab. We take this responsibility VERY seriously.

The image that you received may take an hour or two, or even longer, but it is to evaluate your work from the ground up on one of our more difficult cases. Many of our babies do not require nearly as much work, but some do, and for all of our babies we have a standard that we require our retouch artists to adhere to. Once you are approved you can choose which babies you want to work on as they come in.

Again, I'm sorry you had a negative experience, and I hope you will consider working with us going forward.

Well, "favorite" might not be the way I would think of it, but the most REWARDING part is when I get a Thank You note from a family. Knowing how they treasure what I have done means more to me than I can adequately describe.

The demand is greater than we have the resources to respond. In some metropolitan areas we have nowhere NEAR enough photographers to cover the requests. Here in the Denver area, it is not rare to have multiple requests in one day. my personal experience is that I have been out on a session while getting an email to determine if I could get to another hospital that day. While two in one day is not normal, neither is it rare.

That is a common and understandable question. Yes, the environment can be very sad and emotional (though not always). We have a job to do and we are concentrating on getting the proper posing, good lighting, getting the types of images we need. So we are a bit removed from the emotion of the moment. I find that the time spent preparing the images is far more emotional than the session itself. NOW I am observing the images, not concentrating on making them.

It is NOT as tough a people believe to make the images - it sounds difficult - it is a job to do!