“ATTENTION:
For the safety of our volunteer photographers, NICU families, hospital staff, and premature babies, we will not be providing our photography services until further notice. As soon as we feel that it is safe to continue, we will be back in hospitals nationwide and photographing your little ones!
Thank you for understanding, and please stay safe everyone!”
Volunteering
I am very excited to announce that I an officially a volunteer with Capturing Hopes Photography. Meaning I will be working with Unity Point Health to offer NICU families free photography for their little NICU babies. As a mama of a NICU baby I understand what those photos can mean to a family.
About Capturing Hopes
Capturing Hopes is a hospital support program for families of babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). It is the mission of Capturing Hopes to provide professional photography throughout each baby's NICU journey from the time of their birth until they graduate from the NICU, always free of charge to all families. Capturing Hopes is a 501c(3) nonprofit organization based out of Clemmons, North Carolina with programs and photographers nationwide.
The Mission of Capturing Hopes
The entire mission of Capturing Hopes can be summed up in one word, HOPE. As a support program for families, our goal is to give hope during their baby's entire stay in the NICU. We accomplish this with the use of professional lenses, low aperture photography, beautiful lighting, and by focusing in on the beauty and humanity of each baby in our photos. We find hope during a time where some days it is hard to see it. When families see the back of our camera and gasp at how beautiful their baby is, we know we have accomplished what we have set out to do.
Unlike regular hospital photography programs, Capturing Hopes provides photos weekly/bi-weekly from the time the baby is born, no matter how small. We have photographed babies as small as 12 ounces, 13 ounces, 15 ounces...the size does not matter, we will capture their journey from the very start.
Here are a few other things you should know:
- Holiday events are available in participating hospitals 4-5 times a year
- Every family receives a digital gallery within 10 days of their session to download and keep forever
- All photo sessions are FREE of charge to the family and the hospital
- Photographers are all professional photographers with their own businesses
- We take two types of volunteers: Professional photographers, and previous NICU parents to run holiday events
- CHP is not intended to replace regular newborn photography programs
- We are a nonprofit organization that relies on donations from the public and local businesses
About our founder - Deneen Bryan
It was 1997 when Deneen and her husband, Steve, found out that their daughter was born with a liver disease called "biliary atresia". They lived in Dublin, Ireland at the time, and headed to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN when they found out her diagnosis. While there, Deneen, her husband, and their 1 year old son stayed at the local Ronald McDonald House while their daughter, Christina, underwent several surgeries to repair her liver. In March of 1998, Deneen underwent surgery to donate part of her own liver to her daughter for a living related donor transplant. It was just over a month later that they lost Christina due to complications following her transplant. She was 5 months and 22 days old at the time of her death.
During their lengthy stay in the hospital, a local professional photographer offered a free session to Deneen's family in the hospital. It was the generosity of that photographer, and the photos her own family captured while Christina was in the hospital, that would inspire Deneen to take up photography specifically to provide to children's hospitals many years later. Nothing will ever replace the photos they now have to remember Christina daily.
In 2010, Deneen began volunteering at her local Ronald McDonald House upon a move to North Carolina. Through the donation of professional photography, Deneen spent hours every week in several units of Brenner Children's Hospital in Winston Salem, NC, but she spent the majority of her time in the NICU there, tracking the progress of each baby's growth from week to week for the families. Always free of charge to the families. In 2013, Deneen opened up her photography program to hospitals in several other states and Capturing Hopes Photography was born.
To contact Deneen about her story or for a public speaking engagement, you can reach her at capturinghopesdirectors@gmail.com
