Over the course of the next few months, we are hoping to have conversations with various
people who have important roles in caring for those who are enduring perinatal and infant loss. These are people who approach their work with purpose, tenderness, and sensitivity. Our community is better and stronger because they are in it.
{Always Love}
“Each life, no matter how brief, changes the world.”
Excerpts from A Conversation with Photographer Jennifer Wolsey
A photographer who works primarily with children and families in Central New York, Jen Wolsey has been telling stories from behind a camera for years. For the last four of those years, she has been helping bereaved families tell the stories of their babies. Jen photographs families for their their first and last moments with their babies. Always with love, Jen creates memories that families hold dear even as they hold her photographs in their hands.
When did you start end of life photography for little ones?
I had a friend who was a Child Life Specialist at the hospital. When she asked me if I would ever be interested in it, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to keep my emotions in check, so I declined a couple of times. Then a situation happened with a baby about four years ago. She called and said, “Can you come?” Something in me said I had to go, and I did.
What do you remember about that first time photographing a loss?
Oh, yes. The mom was a young woman whose baby was not going to survive, that’s all I really knew when I said I would come, I met with a few other members of the care team in the hallway, and we chatted while things were happening in the delivery room. Soon after the baby had been born, the nurse came out and told me it was my turn. I had never done anything like it before, and I was nervous. But as soon as I walked in, my intuition took over. The baby was wrapped in blankets and had not been bathed. She has some physical anomalies that were hard for me to take in at first. But I asked the nurse for a basin, shampoo, and some towels. I cleaned up the baby as best I could, wrapped her up again in clean blankets, and handed her back to her mom. The love on that mother’s face when she saw her little girl is something I will never forget.
What do you focus on in your photographs?
I often think that I am not there to take photographs, but to create memories. So many parents have only pain to hold on to, I want to give them something different I try to capture tender moments- sometimes smiles, sometimes tears, but always real. I like to use things like wedding bands, blankets, baskets, headbands … all things that can create a moment that can serve as a memory. I want parents to have memories of talking about how their baby’s feet were big like his dads or how her little nose looked just like her grandmother’s.
Do parents have certain wishes as to what the photographs should look like?
Sometimes, especially if I have the chance to meet with the parent(s) ahead of delivery. Otherwise, I work with them and with what I have. I try to get the baby ready on the mother’s lap; it’s one of the ways to engage the parents. I’m not just there to photograph the baby, I’m there to photograph the family, the love.
What do parents do with these pictures?
You’d be surprised. I try to give parents two sets of images- some are unedited and record things exactly as they were, others I edit a bit. Some parents keep them in a album, others have them in frames in their homes, some give them away, others send them out as holiday cards with a note about what happened. I love when I see parents treating these photographs as they would photographs for a living child. I want them to have something to show people and say, “Look at my beautiful baby.”
This is intense work with an intense subject matter. Have you ever experienced negative reactions to you being there?
Yes, from time to time. When it happens, it is typically because some family members think it might be more upsetting to have the photographs taken. They are trying to protect themselves, or the ones they love, from more pain. Once they realize what it going to happen, and how it happens, they have always come around. Every single time.
I see you as part documentarian and part memory maker. Why do you think it is important to document these moments?
I think it is important to try to create an experience for these parents and their babies. They have been through, are going through, and will go through so much pain. I try to give them an experience that will help them remember the love, not just the pain. The sweetness of a dad holding his daughter’s hand, a grandmother blessing her precious grandchild, a little one all snuggled up … these are all experiences of profound love. I document the love.
Your heart is clearly in this work.
It is. I think back to many years ago when I lost a little girl when I was four months pregnant. There was nothing like this for me then. I can help these parents by giving them what I never got. This is not about me, though, it’s really about the love I see over and over in these families. I have been privileged to be with these families in their deepest pain. It’s sad and beautiful at the same time. It’s a great honor to do this work.
Do you ever stay in touch with families?
Oh yes, a lot. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to photograph subsequent pregnancies and babies, and that’s great. I love staying in touch and seeing how their lives unfold.
{Always Love} is the non-profit portion of Root & Wander Photography in Cazenovia, NY.
For more information, contact Jen Wolsey at (315) 715-1053 or https://rootandwanderphotography.com