Heidi Daniels :: the dc birth photographer

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Heidi Daniels :: the dc birth photographer

storytelling photography and films for the wild at heart

raw.intimate.unscripted.

12/25/2024

Sending a warm Merry Christmas from the Daniels family! 🎄 We’ve started the today with our tradition of breakfast casserole and homemade cinnamon rolls, and my kids wasted no time diving into their presents. We managed to make time for the annual Christmas pajama photos first though! What’s a tradition you and your family are enjoying this holiday season?

03/01/2023

I've been keeping a little secret. I've spent the last six months digging deep into the WHAT, the WHY, the HOW of my brand, doing a website refresh in the process. March is my birthday month and I figured that's the perfect time to launch my new website out loud! To celebrate, I am doing not one, not two, but THREE giveaways!

1. LOCAL TO DC - "The Love Letter" - You get a complimentary 2-hour session with you and your littles, and I craft a mini-highlight film that will serve as a love letter to your children and to your life, in all its perfect imperfection.

2. LOCAL TO DC - "The Birth Worker" - One lucky local birthworker will get a complimentary 2 hour mini-branding shoot - a combo of headshots and action shots. We'll dream it up together!

3. NOT LOCAL - "The Care Package" - Don't live in DC but still want to participate? This one is for you! You will receive a care package direct from Spoonful of Comfort.

WAYS TO ENTER!

1. SHARE: SHARE this post on Facebook or Instagram! Then COMMENT saying 1, 2, or 3 to indicate which giveaway you're entering AND tag a friend (or 2 or 5 or 237) and tell us what you love about the new website!

2. SCREENSHOT your favorite part of my website and share a comment about what you love about it! Tag me, or if you are sharing off FB/IG, screenshot the share and DM it to me or email [email protected]. Every share is an additional entry!

3. FOR PAST CLIENTS OF MINE: Share an image from your session on any social media site with some words about what you loved about working with me, tag me (or screenshot and email it to me), and link to my new site for another entry!

4. SUBSCRIBE to my storytelling newsletter, "Remembering Real." Link in comments!

And that's it! Winners will be announced on my birthday - March 15! I'm so excited to share this new site with you. Thank you for being here, friends!

Special shoutout to the following, without whom this would not have been possible:

site template:
Tonic Site Shop

Site implentation, copy, friend, person who encouraged me to dig deep and SEE:
Kellē Sauer

logo and branding graphic design:
Saffron Avenue

biggest cheerleader, marketing strategist, embodiment of "community over competition", proud to call you my friend:
Emily Gerald Photography

12/14/2021

This light. This belly. This baby. 💕

12/06/2021

I had the honor last night of witnessing one of the most calm births I’ve ever been privileged to witness. This mama breathed her baby out so, so gently. It didn’t even seem like she was pushing, just leaning in to her body’s urges to slowly move her baby down with the rhythm of her breath. My own pushing stages with my three babies were not like this - for me pushing was sweaty and loud and this intense primal force that overtook my body and I was just along for the ride. So I’m always just in awe of the many ways birth can unfold. 💕

09/14/2021

18 months into a pandemic, and I’m still trying to get my bearings. I know I’m not the only person in the world who feels this way, but I still feel like I should have figured this out by now, shouldn’t be so overwhelmed with pandemic-living, should be better able to cheerfully be running my business as if nothing unusual was happening in the outside world.

Or maybe not.

Maybe we’re all in this haze of pandemic-living, trying to find our way out, trying to hang on to the bits of normal that still exist.

I’ve decided it’s time to start getting caught up sharing the work I’ve done during the pandemic, because despite things slowing down (and even stopping for awhile during lockdown), I have been so lucky to be able to continue making beautiful photos and telling important stories during this time. I feel like the photos I’ve made during covid have been among my most beautiful, maybe because their beauty is juxtaposed against so many of the ugly things we are living with these days.

Way back at the very beginning of lockdown, on the first day that both Virginia and Maryland issued a “stay at home” order, I missed my first birth because of covid. My dear returning client – this would have been the third birth I photographed for her – delivered her baby powerfully but without the support and documentation she so desperately wanted. A few hours later, I met her and her husband when they arrived home, and I was able to document the moment her older girls met the new baby.

I didn’t know what a “stay at home” order meant. I didn’t know if I should even be on the road (would a cop pull me over for not being at home? I didn’t know how these things worked.) No one was wearing masks yet. I didn’t know if I should be there but I also knew I HAD to be there, I had to give her something to remember her baby’s birthing day by.

After this session it would be 6 weeks of “staying at home” before I photographed another session…and another 3 months before I photographed a birth. Being able to create this work right before being stuck at home was so meaningful and reminded me that no matter what craziness might exist “out there”, in homes and hospitals and birth centers babies are still being born, siblings are still meeting for the first time, families are still growing and experiencing the most important moments of their lives.

As long as that’s happening, I want to be a part of telling those stories.

Link to film in comments because Facebook compression is killing me.

03/15/2021

One year ago yesterday I put my 10 month old baby in the car and drove 2.5 hours up to Delaware to be with my best friend while she gave birth. I strapped Ivy to my back and made some of the most beautiful work I've ever had the privilege of creating (not hard to do with such a powerful and beautiful subject.)

After more than 24 hours of labor and just after midnight on March 14, 2020, my friend and her husband welcomed their son, surrounded by most of her 11 brothers and sisters and other family and friends. While we were at the birth center, the midwife hung up signs on the doors that said that due to the spread of COVID-19, birthing persons would only be able to have one support person. She told us that since we were the only people at the birth center, we could stay - but if another mom came in, we'd have to leave. I will forever be grateful that we were all able to be there, that she didn't give birth even one day later.

That night I drove home, and the next day was my birthday. We trepidatiously went to a restaurant for my birthday dinner. We haven't dined indoors since that day. This day, this birth will forever be the last normal day. I photographed this birth as a gift, but what I didn't realize was how much of a gift it was going to be...to ME....to spend my last normal day doing this work that I love so much.

02/03/2021

"You didn't just photograph the labor and birth...you captured a love story between a husband and wife, and mother and daughter." ~Rachel

Tears came to my eyes when Rachel texted me this after looking through her birth gallery. It was a tough, hard fought birth not without complication. But through her photos Rachel was able to see that her birth was, in spite of everything, a love story.

💛 This is why I do what I do. 💛

If you are planning a home birth or birth center birth, I would love to tell your love story 💛 I still have a couple of openings for February and March and am offering home birth and birth center incentives right now...don't hesitate to reach out!

06/30/2020

A worldwide pandemic changes everything, and yet babies are still being born and beautiful families still need photos! I was so sad when hospitals in the Northern Virginia area began restricting visitors, knowing that I would miss the birth of my dear returning client Jessica, now pregnant with baby boy #2. I am so grateful for beautiful weather and the ability to shoot “socially distant” outdoor sessions in deserted parts of the Manassas Battlefield near my home. It doesn’t make up for missing births, but beautiful images were still captured!

Address

Washington D.C., DC

Website

https://dcbirthphotographer.com/

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