I’m a pretty even keel person, not prone to outbursts or raising my voice. That is, unless I have a deck of cards in front of me fighting for the family Euchre championship title (which doesn’t actually exist, but someday definitely will)! Sometimes my secret competitive nature surprises me, coming out when I’m making The Very Best Gingerbread Cookies, or most recently when I’m fine tuning every aspect of my business, over and over and over.

I’m competing with myself. With everyone around me. It’s rather exhausting and sometimes my efforts to be the best, actually paralyze me. I can start to feel that if I’m not on top, why try? I become a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy if I’m not careful. It’s so easy to do, to talk yourself out of fully trying because of fear. But what I’ve learned this week (and I’m sure I’ll be learning it for awhile) is that we’re all figuring this out together. At varying degrees and speeds, but my process isn’t “good” or “bad” it’s simply mine. I get to mold it, and shout it, and grow it. My business gets to look however I need it to, regardless of what every other REALLY AMAZING birth photographer is doing.

There is an amazing online community that I’m just barely getting into. We swap stories and experiences, crowd source camera settings, contract ideas, and share so many gorgeous photos of birth and labor. It is a beautiful collective of photographers banding together to support the international growth of birth photography! It also often stirs up that war inside of me that I battle that tells me I’m not as good as these other photographers. That they possess better organizational skills, or whatever my brain wants to pick apart from the buffet of options that day. But if I let them, these women inspire me, they are why I’m pursuing becoming a doula and why I have prioritized things like getting an LLC or contracts figured out. They provide accountability and insight into the very specific niche that surrounds documenting the first breaths of a teeny tiny babe. It is because of groups like Birth Becomes You that I have been able to feel like I am compiling the tools I need to succeed and thrive at Randi Armstrong Photography, but when they opened up the year for their annual photography competition I almost didn’t enter it. Until it dawned on me that winning doesn’t need to be my goal. For me, right now, being able to participate IS winning. I mean in 2020, simply attending a birth while navigating all of the changing regulations was a win! So putting my name in the same hat as these photographers that have become heroes to me, is an honor and honestly a dream come true. So I submitted two photographs with permissions from the family, and I’m so excited to share them with you here too!

This one I titled Everyone in Their Place.

I’m drawn to this image because of the way you can follow the faces around the room, they are all working together for the very goal of bringing Hannah earth side. It shows collaboration and support, it shows love.

I titled this image Elation.

If you have the honor of knowing Shannon like so many of us do, you’ve seen this expression before. She goes all in for everyone and everything around her. I love that this is was her reaction to getting to have her fresh long awaited babe on her chest for the first time. Looking up into her husbands eyes, blown away by what she just did. What THEY made!?! The connection the three of them shared in that golden hour after Hannah’s arrival is something I will never forget. It was magical and pure.

I’m really grateful to be able to do what I do. To be invited into the most intimate of spaces on your most important days, is an incredible honor. Capturing new life, love, support, and compassion, it’s all a dream come true.

So really, what I’m saying to my own very inwardly competitive nature is that while there is only one winner when it comes to competitions like this, I’m also winning by stretching myself, by being vulnerable, by sharing. I won by seeing 300+ incredible images in one place and being hit afresh with just how beautiful this work is. Seeing just how unique, gorgeous, and important every birth is. The cozy home births with their window lit bathrooms and familiar surroundings, the triumphant caesarians with baby lifted high into the air so her family on the other side of the screen can finally meet her. I am struck with the beauty I witnessed firsthand as Shannon so expertly worked her darling Hannah into the world, I will never forget their cheers as they met their new babe. And every single one of these images represents a family, a story, a collection of lives that we get to celebrate. And goodness if that’s not the greatest WIN I’m not sure what is.