Sunday, December 5, 2010

Photos from NILMDTS

We're extremely thankful for the photos we have from the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS) photographer.  A few weeks after receiving them I felt compelled to reach out to the photographer who did this for us and ask her for the raw files.  (Original files from the camera, unedited)  She was very kind and gave me everything she had on a disk in raw format.  I do all my own editing in photoshop using raw images and wanted the opportunity to edit some.  It was nice that there were some additional images that we hadn't seen before.  I'm slowly editing them in between other things and will post several of them to the blog.

The down side is we don't have any real "portraits" of Sofia or of us with her.  None where we're smiling happily at our new baby.  There are mostly snapshots of us in the hospital with family in the room (not photos we plan on framing, but still value them just as much).

The only face shot of Sofia that most resembles a portrait was given to us originally in black & white (photo displayed at her funeral).  Now that I have the raw images I have a color version.  Black & white hides a lot of imperfections so touching up the color version was tough, but I worked on that today. (I should mention I did not color her lips; in fact, I lightened them just a little. Because she was not alive at birth, the pigmentation in her lips was very dark-almost a red wine color. Since this is how we remember her I didn't want it to be too light.)

From Slideshow


From Slideshow

I also cropped & touched up a color photo of me holding Sofia in the hospital.  I love this photo because it emphasizes her gorgeous head of hair.

From Slideshow

I have many more to work on.  Although it's sad, I'm glad I'm able to spend so much time looking at her through photos.

6 comments:

  1. These pictures are BEAUTIFUL Lia. How nice of the photographer to give you all the raw files. I'm sure it is extremely difficult to go through them all, but glad to hear you are feeling some comfort and closeness to Sofia while you're working on them.

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  2. She is so sweet! I loved holding her!

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  3. Lia i know you said you don't have any "real" portraits of your family smiling but the photo of you holding Sofia is as beautiful, if not more, then any picture I have seen of a mom with her new born baby. She is a beautiful girl and is so lucky to have such devoted parents. My prayers continue to be with you.

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  4. I'm so glad you were able to use a NILMDTS photographer to have some photographs of you guys. The photos you've shared of Sophia have all been beautiful. Thank you for sharing them and her with us. She's on my mind and you all are in my prayers often.

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  5. Thank you all! I write in the blog for our healing first & foremost but I love that you choose to follow it too. We appreciate your kind words and continued support.

    Sarah- I know while you were holding her in the hospital her spirit was in that room and she was happy to have her Auntie loving her so much.

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  6. Sofia Rose is such a beautiful name! I partly feel this way because my middle name is Rose :) but also because my little girl is my flower, Lily Katherine. She was stillborn at fullterm on March 16, 2010. I am so sorry for your loss. She is a beautiful little girl. I'm sure you will forever cherish those photos. I will always be sad that the hospital didn't offer me the NILMDTS service, even though I live in the capital city and there are plenty of photographers around here that are involved with it. I'd love for you to follow my blog as well: www.roseandherlily.blogspot.com

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