Staff Writer 

Last month Claudia Murray’s received the Kodak Gallery Award, the Fuji Masterpiece Award, the Album Court of Honor and the “Best Album Award” during the Maine Professional Photographer’s Association’s (MPPA) annual convention and banquet for her photo album titled “A Miraculous Morning.” Murray, an active MPPA member, said she submitted the album with high hopes due to it’s unique content. 

“In these types of contests you typically see photos of families, babies and weddings,” she said. “This isn’t the typical entry.”

The basis for the award winning compilation: a cesarean section.

The concept for the album began five years ago when Murray, having finished tending to the needs of her family and her photography business, was preparing to wind down for a summer afternoon. Then the phone rang. 

Murray dashed from her Scarborough home, drove straight to the hospital and walked into a delivery room where a woman and her husband were expecting their fourth child to arrive at any minute. While the couple’s family waited outside, Murray, who was not related to either of the expecting parents or their unborn child, had a front row seat for the delivery. 

They were her clients.

“You hear about people photographing births here and there,” Murray said. “It’s an opportunity to get the photos that Dad isn’t going to get with a point-and-shoot. Personally, I would kill my husband if he was more focused on taking pictures than on me during childbirth.” 

Murray said she was intrigued by the idea and agreed to photograph the birth “as long as [she] could make it,” not knowing when or how long the delivery would be. When the time came, Murray said her schedule was unusually empty and the delivery only took a few hours. Time spent preparing lighting and tools prior to the delivery day eventually paid off, she said.

“I put a black cloth on the Dad’s shoulder and got a great shot of these big, hardened lobsterman’s hands holding a newborn baby,” she said. “What a great opportunity, I will never forget that little guy.”

Last October, Murray found herself in another delivery room, only this time there was no need to worry about scheduling. Murray said she spent the better part of a month preparing to photograph a cesarean section delivery at Maine Medical Center. Unlike her previous delivery photo shoot, she said she planned on photographing the entire day, beginning with the trip to the hospital right up to the arrival of her client’s fourth child. 

“I was kind of manic about taking pictures of the clock,” she said. “I wanted to incorporate the day as a whole so I used images of the time to keep everything on track.”

Murray said she decided not to use any flash for the shoot to minimize her presence in the delivery room.

“It was such an intense time, [the parents] were so focused on each other,” she said. “If you asked either of them they would say it was like I wasn’t even there.”

Murray is no stranger to working without a flash in low-lighting situations; she said she often prefers it to  flash-photography and as always, she had her camera set on manual for the delivery. 

“I thought long and hard about the equipment I was going to bring. I love the control,” she said. “Shooting manually lets you do stuff you can’t get when a camera is set on auto.” 

The photo album earned Murray “a lot of glass” awards, but she said the real reward was being able to help the family record their special occasion. 

“For me it’s all about people. I’m not the type of person who is happy putting a piece of jewelry on the table and taking pictures of it. I have no rapport with a lighthouse,” she said. “Oftentimes when people take birthing photos it’s a family member, and that means they’re not in the pictures. The story is missing something when that happens.”

When Murray isn’t snapping photos in the delivery room she is most likely doing just that in a nursery. She said she “greatly enjoys” taking photographs of babies and children – she also received awards for images of a baby making faces at himself in a mirror at the MPPA conference last month – a task that can be daunting for some professional photographers. 

“A lot of people don’t like working with kids,” she said. “To me it’s the challenge. You know you’re going to get that one kid who won’t smile and you better believe it’s my mission to get them to.”

Inspired by the photography of Anne Gettes – nationally recognized for her photographs of babies in unexpected places and situations – Murray said she is always trying to think of a unique and different way to photograph the events and people in front of her lens.

“[Gettys] did something that nobody thought would be possible,” she said. “She got you to want to buy a calendar with images of people you’ll never even know. Despite being told it wouldn’t work, she did it and has been successful.” 

Sometimes it takes more than the correct lights and cameras to get a unique photo; Murray said she uses any number of props when working with kids – she said she photographs up to 2,000 a year – and is always prepared for the unexpected.

“When I do weddings I carry bobby pins and lipstick in my camera bag,” she said. “If they’re not having a good day, I’m not going to get good images. It’s that simple.”

While Murray does much of her work with babies and newlyweds in a studio, she said the most stressful part of being a professional photographer is taking photos of one-time events. 

“If you screw up a family portrait at the beach, you call them up, apologize profusely and offer to do it again at no cost,” she said. “My first wedding I was really nervous, not so much about my ability as a photographer, but knowing this is the most important day of people’s lives. There is no redo.”

To avoid missing that picture-perfect moment, Murray said she has learned not to preview her photos by looking at the display image after she takes a photo, a frowned-upon practice called “chimping” in the photography business. 

“I don’t know why it’s called that but it’s bad,” she said. “No chimping.”

To learn more about Murray and her photographs visit www.ClaudiaMurray.com.