San Francisco Maternity photography - November Mother of the Month

SanFrancisco maternity photography clients, and then newborn photography clients, Lisel and Ron inspired me from the day that I spoke to them on the phone.  They knew they wanted me to be their photographer and together we made it happen. They saved and we worked out a special payment plan. Neither of them grew up with family photographs and they wanted these special memories for their son.

1. Tell me a little bit about yourself, Ron and how you met. Why you decided to have kids. Was it an easy process? 

I grew up in Washington State just outside Olympic National Park. My parents built our house in the foothills of the Olympic mountains. After college, I moved to New York to pursue a master's degree in special education.  

Ron and I met in Brooklyn. He owned a bike shop in my neighborhood. I had gotten two flat tires after someone chased me on my bike in the middle of the night and needed a repair. We started dating a week after the flat tires and never really imagined being with anyone else since then. 

Ron grew up in Guyana in South America, so we really are from different hemispheres, but we find that even though there are many differences between us, we really share so much. 

One of our first dates was a bike ride over the Brooklyn bridge. Ron always says he was impressed that I wanted to go all the way over the bridge even though it was cold and dark. I told him I did it every day on my commute. I was already crazy about him. 

Ron agreed to move to Stanford with me when I was admitted for my PhD program and it's been a place full of opportunities for both of us. We had been married for almost two years and living here when we decided we were ready to start trying for a baby (Ron was ready sooner--he is here with me and he says "right after we met", but he waited patiently). It was a good thing we waited until we were ready because baby Ronan was conceived the first night we started trying. 

2. What is your secret to a good relationship? 

We think the secret to a good relationship is to be a part of a team. We personally are team MP (or Murdock-Perriera) and our

friends call us "The Unstoppable MPs". Being part of a team means communicating all the time, saying "I love you" even when we are furious with one another, and inventing adventures together even when adventures seem hard to find. We even have games to make bed-making an adventure every morning. 

We fight to spend time together, and we always put each other and our family first.

3. Tell me about why you decided to have professional family or maternity photographs, and why you trusted me to take these special photos.

We wanted to have professional photographs because we wanted to remember the special time in our marriage since I've been pregnant, a time that we feel has made us much closer as a couple, contrary to many of the stereotypes we've heard and some recently released articles. We also wanted to have photos of our little one early on to treasure always. Neither of our families has had many professional photographs, and so it feltlike something special to us to begin the tradition and to be privileged enough to be able to have them.

We choose you for our photographs for several reasons. First, we fell in love with your work we saw your online portfolio and in your fine art work as well. It was important for us to work with an artist and to support an artist. Looking at your portfolio, we noticed how many photos are of multiracial couples. The fact that we are a multiracial couple is integral to who we are and to our lives, so we wanted to choose a photographer for whom this kind of work was a priority. Talking to you on the phone confirmed that for us. Finally, we wanted to work with a photographer who held progressive views about couples, parenting, and body image. We love that you photograph and support a wide spectrum of families and body types in your work.  

4. Please feel free to include anything else you like that is interesting about you or your parenting philosophy. 

We love children's books. Since we both work in education (Ron teaches preschool, I teach graduate school after five years of teaching elementary school), our house is literally being overtaken by children's books at any given time. We love to read them to each other, to our friends, and to our baby belly, and now we read and tell stories to our little one. We also love to make up family songs to sing to our baby.

Giving birth to our son and getting to know him has been the most incredible thing that has happened to either one of us and to both of us together. We are completely in love with every bit of him and marvel at him constantly. People always tell us that he looks or is like one or both of us, and we love those compliments. Most of all, he is himself, and we are in awe of this life unfolding with us each day.

To see more San Francisco Maternity Photography visit Jennifer's Maternity Portfolio.

For more San Francisco Maternity Photography,  read about my February Mother of the Month. 

I am starting to experiment with making little videos for my clients from their final image selections. Here is one of them.