Back to the Business of Birth | St Louis Birth Photographer

I've noticed over the years, we photographers often have a path that led us into the art of still photography. It's not something you just fall into and take up because it's there. It takes an innate love and skill set that is almost inborn. From portraits to still life to photojournalism, we all have the passion that drives us to keep pressing that shutter button and capturing the things we see around us.

For this girl, it was birth.



While I offer portraiture and love it very much, at my heart I am a photojournalist. I want to be the fly on the wall capturing the action in front of me. Shots like the one above? I don't just love to capture them. I live for it.



Birth photography has always been around as long as cameras have been at births. But the business of capturing birth on film/camera for a client was just starting to pick up steam in 2005 when my passion for birth itself was in its infancy. I was pregnant with my third child, planning a home birth, and finding stunningly beautiful images of birth on the Internet. It captured my interest immediately.



In 2004-2005, as I was nurturing the babe growing in my belly, I was also nurturing the love of the art of birth photography. I wanted this to be my life, my career. I absolutely loved and was fascinated by birth. I already enjoyed the art of photography. In 2006, I was given permission to shoot my first birth. The ONLY one I've ever missed. My clients called too late and I was unable to make the 40 minute drive to the birth center fast enough to shoot the actual birth. But what I learned was irreplaceable.



I had never had work that I was so passionate about. To this day, nearly 6 years later, I have yet to find anything that grips me with the same excitement, the same joy, the same vitality that birth photography brings to me.



My sadness in December 2010 at shooting what I knew would be my last birth for quite some time was a little overwhelming. Yes, I was still offering portraiture and my photography business has continued to grow and thrive, but my status as single mom meant that the unpredictable nature of birth was off the table. Possibly for a very long time. I was nearly distraught.



My fiance, Jay, says that my face lights up when I talk about birth photography. It's what most animates me.



And why wouldn't you love it? The long nights, the weeks of living on call- ready to drop everything and go at a moment's notice, the sleeping with one hand on your cell phone (and obsessively checking your phone when a Mama has started laboring), the foggy mornings of editing last night's images.....

It's a calling. It's a passion. It's my life. Other than Jay and my children there is literally nothing I love more.







And now, it's back in my life.

Breathtaking happily introduces birth photography back into it's menu of choices, beginning with due dates in late February 2012. I'm just absolutely delighted to begin this work that so fills me with joy and allows me to give my clients a glimpse into their births that they would not otherwise have.

I shoot at home, at birth center, and at hospitals around the St. Louis Metropolitan area and into Illinois. I work equally as well at c-sections as I do at home births, with obstetricians as well as with midwives.

I will accept 4 births per month and offer a fantastic Belly+Birth+Baby package at a discount for the complete boutique photography experience.

You may reach me at 636-328-5120 or at chantel@takeyourbreathaway.net

I am honored and humbled at my ability to serve women and give the gift of memories treasured for a lifetime.

Much love,
Chantel