Photographer Overview

My name is Jamie Anderson, and I’m the photographer behind JME Portraits. I was born and raised in sunny San Diego, California. I began taking pictures at the ripe old age of 12, and had an old film camera that was a hand me down twice removed! My very first “photo shoot” was in Washington, DC as an eighth grade student! I still have those photos tucked away; I keep them to remind me how far I’ve come.

I chose to do newborns because I have a special place in my heart for these little people, especially when I think about how big of a hold they have on our hearts. Mother’s Day is a beautiful day for most…but a very sad and difficult day for others. I remember skipping church and avoiding luncheons/dinners when we couldn’t get pregnant. When month after month I got a BFN (moms that are trying know what that means). After several years of trying, lots of fertility tests and even more prayers, I can say with pride, “I am a mom.” It’s been the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Through my own experiences in childbirth and time spent in the NICU, God has blessed me with compassion for others and their similar circumstances. I have four children and all four of them came into the world in a different way. Hailey. My first. The one I had prayed for for years came on her due date. A perfect pregnancy, a perfect labor, and a perfect delivery. Caleigh came early. I had been on bed rest for a couple of weeks due to contractions and then my blood pressure went up. Way up. I had her after 2 days of labor and after hours of pushing she came out, broken nose and all. She came out turned to the side and for that reason I broke her nose! Baby John. My boy. My only blue eyed baby. He is a miracle. I was punched in the stomach when I was only 16 weeks while teaching high school. I was on bed rest for the rest of my pregnancy with an emergency cerclage. I was blessed in my delivery, he was my fastest at only 8 hours, start to finish. After 2 days in the hospital we headed home with our new baby boy! But as we pulled in the driveway baby John turned blue and wasn’t breathing. After several days in the NICU and next to zero sleep we finally got to bring him home. Apnea monitor and all. And then there is Aubree, our surprise baby (never thought I’d say that) and our surprise gender baby! She is the one that perfectly rounds out my ability to have compassion with all moms and their birth stories. After 3 babies I was sure I’d have her super fast and all would be smooth sailing…then they told me she was breech! What??? She wasn’t breech a couple of days before. So we got all prepared to do a version, and possibly a c-section. They wheeled me into the operating room only to find out she had turned herself head down already!!! The joy was only short lived though because after several hours of labor her arm was coming out of the canal first and I had to be rushed in for an emergency c-section!! She was born with an apgar score of 2, and for those that don’t know the scoring is out of 10 and they usually want a baby to be a 9 or 10, so a 2 was an emergency situation. She ended up in the NICU for several days before we could be together, so I spent the first several days of her life pumping so I could eventually nurse her.

So that’s me. My journey to becoming a mother and my birthing stories. The miscarriage after miscarriage story. The perfect labor and delivery story. The blood pressure problem filled pregnancy story with an early delivery. The emergency cerclage and NICU baby story. And the c-section NICU baby story. I think that pretty much makes me able to relate to everyone…which is why I make a great choice for photographing your story, pregnancy, delivery and newborn!! I have been blessed to experience it. I have been blessed with a heart of compassion. And I have been blessed with a talent. A talent I want to share with your family.

I love photography because it allows me to share in God’s beauty. He creates it, but I capture it. And that’s what I want from every shoot; I want to capture the beautiful person God created your newborn to be. There is nothing more beautiful than a brand new little one swaddled up so tight; a newborn baby in her mother’s arms; or a father looking down on his son with the future in his eyes.

My beginnings as a photographer are not pretty, but the end results have been breathtaking!