Jennifer Loomis:
Pregnancy Photographer / Photojournalist

What do I get out of it? I get gifts of trust. I get gifts of love. I get gifts of friendship. I get fed on so many levels, spiritually.

I get these women hugging me because they are so excited. I get to hear how this was a surprise for her husband, and I get to see the reaction when she shows him the prints. I get great relationship stories.

You know what? There is hope out there. These people love each other. I get dads crying in the studio because their wives look so beautiful.

I get a lot.

- Jennifer Loomis

Taped to the wall by Jennifer Loomis' desk, a scrawled quote by a former teacher has guided her career for the last decade: "Passion and love must drive your world."

Anyone within earshot when this pioneer in pregnancy photography talks about her work will tell you - this woman is on fire with passion and love for her career.

"It's so important for these mothers," says Jennifer ardently. "Every one of us comes from a pregnant mother. It's ridiculous that we don't celebrate that!

"Pregnancy has so long been covered in baggy clothes, and behind the doctor's office doors. But there's such an amazing beauty to it."

For Jennifer, it's not just about taking pictures, it's about creating a paradigm shift, and giving women the gift of believing that they're beautiful.

How it started

She wasn't always so passionate about her career. In the early nineties, her executive assistant job left her feeling empty and unfulfilled.

A photo from that time tells the story poignantly. A photography class assignment was to create a photograph of a word that kept going through her mind. Jennifer's word was passion.

"I was working at this job where I felt so divorced from my heart," she says. "So divorced from anything that meant something for me. And I didn't know how to get back.

Communicating that visually was a challenge. "I went to the local butcher and bought a beef heart. I took off all my clothes, and took the picture. My instructor thought I was completely bizarre," she laughs. "Everyone's print was like, flower, baseball, and there it is - me naked, with a beef heart on a platter.

"That was my heart outside my body, and I wanted to figure out how to reunite the two. That was the start of me saying, what am I passionate about? What do I love, and what do I care about?"

The exploration

A nude photography class where the male students were clearly more inspired by "fishnet hose and cheesy garters" than the beauty of the nude model's graceful poses was a catalyzing experience for her.

"What I saw was incredibly beautiful and I realized those people didn't see that," she recalls. "What a disconnect!"

She started looking at books of nudes. "I thought, somehow I look at this and I don't feel like a beautiful woman. I feel inadequate. I don't have big boobs, I'm not tall, I'm not blonde. I'm sort of the anti-woman."

She started experimenting, "photographing women, developing a style, and having fun with film." A chance referral from Annie Liebowitz' studio turned her on to pregnancy photography. "I thought, this is amazing!" she says of that first experience.

Balancing left and right

A desire to tell stories with her photography led her to a Masters in photojournalism.

In adding photojournalism to the mix, she discovered an important key to her career satisfaction - providing both a left and a right brained outlet. "The two together create better work for me. If I deny one, then the other suffers."

Following graduate school, Jennifer worked in Africa as a photojournalist. In 1998, she joined MSNBC.com in Seattle. For four years she maintained her pregnancy photography business on the side.

The transition

Her pregnancy work was the culmination of a long journey of exploration and discovery. "I had spent ten years figuring it out," she says. "It was a long painful process. It's unraveling the gift, pulling the threads off, taking off the layers off the onion."

Before pursuing her pregnancy work full time, she had to convince herself that she could. "It took a while to believe that I could make it work," she remembers. "It took a lot of conditioning and reprogramming my mind."

One of her core values played a big role in the decision. "I never want to look back on my life and say I regret not doing something.

"I knew that I really had a passion for what I did. I thought, OK, are you going to let it die, or are you going to do it?" She did it.

Creating a niche

When she discovered pregnancy photography, there was no market for it. "Four years ago in Seattle," she says, "the idea just wasn't there. I had to create a need here in order to fill it. In Seattle now, it's growing - and it's starting to show nationally. I get calls from all over the US."

Fears and doubts

As with most people who have pursued their passions, fears and doubts have played a role along the way.

"I had a financial fear," Jennifer says, "because I didn't have any money. Then there's the creative fear. Am I good enough? What if I suck and I don't know about it? And there's the business fear - I don't know what I'm doing."

Yoga, running, and her dog and cats have been big factors in managing the anxiety that comes up. "My dog is my little Prozac pill," she says with a grin. "And I have awesome friends who are always there for me."

Another tool is laughter. "My dad's always said that humor is what's going to carry you through your darkest times. And it totally does."

Making the fear a gift

Fear isn't all bad, in Jennifer's book. "Fear is a motivator," she explains, "if you can transform it.

"You can look at anything as a gift or a theft. And the big gift of fear is that, rather than being a debilitator, it can be one of the best motivators. I've tried to figure out how to transform it from paralysis into motivation."

Things to do differently

"I might have sought out a business person earlier," she says. "I've seen a lot of good artists fail because they don't understand business. More importantly, I've seen a lot of bad artists succeed because they do.

"It was also important to realize that I can't do everything. Because I got overwhelmed, and then I felt isolated, and I thought, I don't know what I'm doing…it became this trap."

Positive impact

"I love it! I love my life. I always say, I can't believe it. I love what I do. I've never been happier in my life. It just keeps getting better. I get a lot of energy from it. I get a buzz from it."

How her work reflects who she is

"I believe in empowering people," she says. "A lot of my work with women is that so many women need somebody to believe in them. I want my moms empowered in motherhood."

Parting advice

"Spend a lot of time with yourself to help unravel things, and don't be afraid to dream. What's the ideal? You can back it out from there. Ask yourself, 'If I could have anything…'"

Mentors can play a huge role as well. "I'm lucky," she says. "My life seems to hop from place to place, and each place in time there's someone there for guidance."

Make a plan, and understand that it will probably change. "Everybody thinks your life is this vase that's created in clay and it's already been fired. It's not been fired yet. And the clay isn't dry either. So you can create it differently each time.

"Find the key to turning your fear into being positive. Take back control. When you feel like everything's out of your control, you shut down. But when you can stop and say, OK, maybe all of that's out of my control, but maybe today I can do this…"

Summary

Lessons learned

• Fear can be a motivator. Figure out how to take back control and turn that fear into forward motion.
• You can't do everything yourself - you need to be open to others' help.
• "Spend a lot of time with yourself to help unravel things." It took her a decade years of digging and exploring to reach where she is now.
• "Don't be afraid to dream." Think about what you really, really want, and back it out from there.
• Look for mentors.
• "Make a plan, and understand that it will probably change. Everybody thinks your life is this vase that's created in clay and it's already been fired. It's not been fired yet. And the clay isn't dry either. So you can create it differently each time."

• Yoga
• Running
• Pets
• Friends
• Laughter: "Humor is what's going to carry you through your darkest times."