Few photo sessions have been as moving for me as the one we had with the Logan family. We got to know Emily and Jason when we learned that they were expecting a baby girl who had been diagnosed with trisomy-13, a rare and serious genetic condition caused by the presence of an extra copy of chromosome 13. When Claire was five days old, we had a chance to meet her in person and offered to take family portraits. Emily and Jason accepted the offer, and the resulting photos are the outcome of that tender time we spent together.

Meeting Claire, her big brother Simon, and Emily and Jason, I was reminder of these words from the ancient text in Psalm 139 of the Hebrew scriptures:  

“For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

    when I was made in the secret place,

    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book

    before one of them came to be.“