book of photographs documents a mother's pregnancy

Young Tess Kontarinis squealed and squirmed as her mother attempted to subdue her long enough for photographer Jeremy Heflin to snap a few family photos.

“This happens every time,” said the mother, Melissa Cooperman. She cooed at her daughter, who is just shy of two years old, and affectionately fixed her hair, as five-year-old Jack stood waiting. Melissa was due to have her third child just a few days later, and her bulging stomach was about as big as little Tess.

By this time, Heflin had learned how to pacify the antsy children. Retreating to a corner of his studio at the Salmon Falls Mills in Rollinsford, he brought out a brilliant, red dragon puppet with bulging eyes and a puffy, white tail. He framed the child and her mother in his camera lens as Tess stood mesmerized by the dazzling puppet, unsure whether she should be frightened or amused.

“Look Tessy, look at mommy’s tummy,” Melissa coaxed. Tess smiled and poked her mother’s belly with her finger. A serene calm briefly came over the child, and Heflin seized the moment with a series of shots. The photographer’s goal was to get both kids in a shot beside their mother’s bare belly. He had been photographing Melissa, Jack and Tess for several months, documenting the development of the mother’s pregnancy with pictures. This was to be the final session before Melissa’s C-section. She would return to the studio a little more than a month later, this time with a very big—yet very tiny—addition to the family.

Pearl Kontarinis was born on June 7, 2007. But a heartrending story preceded her birth. Melissa and her husband, Angelo Kontarinis, moved to Exeter from New York in fall 2006, but their happy family encountered some early hardships in the Granite State. Angelo underwent two surgical procedures in the winter, one for open heart surgery and one to have his kidney removed after he was diagnosed with cancer. He has since recovered, but his health woes put a major strain on the newcomers.

Melissa first met Heflin during an open studio exhibit in Rollinsford, and the two found that they shared common interests in photography, music and film. Melissa credits Jack, her oldest child, with inspiring an experiment to surprise his dad. The energetic five-year-old, who looks like a miniature version of his father, was fiddling with a flipbook in Heflin’s studio when Melissa had an idea. With Heflin’s help, she would create a flipbook illustrating the course of her pregnancy and present it to Angelo to expedite his recovery.

Heflin was more than happy to oblige. As they brainstormed the idea, they decided that he would take the pictures, and his wife, Johanna, would design the book. Jeremy and Johanna, who recently moved to South Berwick, Maine, share the studio space in Rollinsford, where he takes photos and she designs artistic book covers. The flipbook project offered a chance for both artists to pursue a business opportunity while broadening their creative horizons. “It was an exciting idea, but it was outside the range of anything we had done before,” Heflin said. “It turned out to be something pretty kick-ass.”

For Melissa and the kids, the project was a way to reinforce their love for Angelo, but it also provided occasional respites from the stress and drama that afflicted their lives over the winter. Melissa began going to Heflin’s studio for photo shoots in February and returned every two or three weeks with the kids. “It’s been nice to kind of get out of our element and come here every few weeks,” Melissa said.

Surprisingly, the youngsters managed to keep the project a secret from their father for a couple of months, but one of them eventually spilled the beans. “I was pretty shocked,” Angelo admitted. Touched by what his family was doing for him, Angelo began tagging along for the shoots, which became more frequent as the big day approached.

The project was not without its challenges. Jack and Tess—veritable balls of kinetic energy—bounced around Heflin’s studio as if it were a pinball machine, posing a constant threat to his equipment. Like most kids, they have short attention spans, and it took a considerable amount of coaxing before they would stand still for a picture. Tessy is also prone to sporadic shrieking fits. It’s startling to hear such prodigious noise coming from such a cute little pigtailed almost-two-year-old. “One of the shoots, we only got one picture. I mean literally only snapped one,” Heflin said.

Then the big day came. The C-section was a success, and baby Pearl was an instant delight for the family. “They all come out with different personalities,” Melissa said as she nursed Pearl in Heflin’s studio on July 13. “She’s really mellow,” she added, nodding toward the baby.

The final shoot featured two additions to the previous lineup, with Angelo and Pearl entering the frame for a full family session. Jack and Tess, perhaps sensing their newfound responsibilities as older siblings, were less rambunctious than usual. Jack tenderly held the baby on his lap as Melissa went to change her clothes, and both children cooperated during a variety of shots—standing with their parents, walking toward their parents from outside the frame, gazing at the baby as their parents crouched down—providing Heflin with the material he needed to complete the book.

It will be a while before the Kontarinis family can pick up the finished project. Heflin plans to spend about a month preparing the book’s final details, choosing what kind of paper to use and the best way of printing the images. In the end, the family will have more than an interesting flipbook. The project also helped the new arrivals to the state make a pair of friends, Jeremy and Johanna.

Pearl cried softly through much of the final photo session, but she calmed down for Heflin’s last shots. Angelo had put on a black shirt, and he cradled the naked baby in his outstretched hands. Heflin cropped the shots so that only the nude baby and Angelo’s hands were visible, producing a final picture of a healthy baby in the arms of a healthy father.