NOTE: If you have been directed here from a comment on another blog, this is my photography page, not my blog, which is http://marthagoudey.wordpress.com. If you are interested in my photography, read on.

When I was a child I took photos with a box Brownie camera and graduated to a Olympus I film camera in my 30s. I loved that camera and took many beautiful photos over the years, took classes and learned to develop my black and white photography, and kept most of my photos hidden from public view. I was just too shy to share what I had produced.

One of my first formal photo shoots was of a natural birth in black and white. I began photographing other births, including that of my midwife’s birth two weeks before I delivered my son. Although I do not do birth photography (I practiced as a midwife for eight years and got tired of being up in the night), I love to do maternity photography or shoot photos of the baby and mom after the birth.

Around 2000 I began using digital cameras and began by shooting senior photos after we discovered that no one could photograph my son to his liking. He settled on a photo I took and that was the beginning of my senior photo business.

In 2004 I started Memory Makers Photography, about the same time I graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. I worked for a newspaper for three and a half years, combining my photography and writing skills. I was thrilled to receive a “Better Newspaper Contest Award” for the “best spot news photo” of 2006 in our category from the Washington State Newspaper Association. It was an obscure award, but the photo was awesome of a fireman backlit by a fire in a fruit warehouse in Wapato.

I quit working for the newspaper in 2008 to be more available to my mother, who was 99 at the time. She needed more of my attention and I thought that she would not be with us much longer. She lived to be nearly 102 and died March 4, 2011. Although I have been taking photos for more than 30 years, and have been in business since 2004, I now have more time to devote to my photography business and my writing.

I work quickly in natural light and use a Canon 60D with a fixed 50 mm lens, and three zoom lens, and an external flash if necessary. I have a backup camera and if the occasion calls for a backup photographer I work with local photographer, Neal Cotner.

Please visit the gallery for examples of my work.

To contact me call 509-969-5541, email mgoudey@charter.net or I’m on Facebook at Martha Goudey or Memory Makers Photography.