Everyone who is close to someone with Down syndrome knows how special these people are. Photographer Julie Willson also knows it very well. He had a sister with Down Syndrome, Dina, who died at age 35 due to heart failure, when doctors did not expect her to survive more than 7 years.
To honor her, the photographer has gathered 11 exception models to create the most beautiful photos of children with Down syndrome and show the natural charm that is in each of them.
The photographer is also a teacher at a nursery school and feels blessed to have grown up with her sister Dina, a carrier of an extra chromosome. "Dina is the best thing that has happened to our family," says the photographer. And he adds: "She has completely inspired my photo shoot."
A statistic that especially attracts the photographer's attention is that the abortion rate in pregnancy when it is discovered that the child has Down syndrome is very high, of about 90 percent.
When he learned that information, what began as a session to show the beauty of these children became an action to try to reduce these rates.
The session has a bucolic air. A teepee shop has been used and children have been dressed in bow ties and they are dressed in frilly dresses. The result is these 12 beautiful photographs, 11 individual and one with the whole group of children.
Carrying an extra chromosome does not differentiate children with down syndrome from other children. They have the same dreams and are the same, and at the same time very different, like any child their age. Life is not about chromosomes is a motto that I always like to remember.
Photos | Julie Willson
In Babies and more | Author creates portraits of children with Down syndrome to show that everyone is a work of art, Beautiful portraits of girls with Down syndrome: art as a form of integration
