Newborn Photography Information

A newborn photo session is a very gentle, slow session where we allow your sleepy baby to curl up into beautiful poses to create those adorable images. The studio may be overly warm for us adults, so please bear this in mind when dressing for the session and layer up! We always start by getting your baby sleepy and content, maybe wrapping them snuggly with covers then, using their beautiful skin as their outfit, we start to create the images that you’ll have on your walls for years to come.  Chris will get to know your baby – what they seem to like and not like – and will ensure that they are happy throughout the shoot.

We say that you really only have a two-week window to truly capture that sheer vulnerability of a newborn baby. Within the first few weeks of life, babies still have around 300 soft cartilage bones which makes them more comfortable curled up tight, with their legs tucked under their bottoms. You can achieve great foetal positions and truly see their ‘newness’ at this time of their lives.

After the initial two-week window, they tend to make a big jump in growth, with arms and legs stretching out much more. Also within the first 10 days, your baby falls into this so-called “coma sleep” after being fed. This coma-like sleep allows us to wrap them more easily into blankets and move arms and legs around without disturbing them too much. They sleep for much longer periods as well. After a few weeks, your baby will become more active and try to look around as their sight starts to develop.

Of course, if you have missed the two-week window but are desperate for shots of your baby when they are still new, you can still get gorgeous images but the typical newborn poses most likely won’t be possible. There are other ways to photograph a slightly older baby and your images will be equally beautiful.

A  single newborn session normally lasts up to two hours, allowing extra time for changing, feeding and comforting. As you simply cannot direct a small newborn, we will adapt to their schedule. So if your baby doesn’t want to sleep or is being a little awkward or cross, that’s OK – you will have plenty of time to tend to their needs.

We completely understand that, so soon after giving birth, you might not feel ready to have your picture taken yet. However, we do encourage you to think about this anyway. The images in which you and your partner are interacting with your little one can be the most precious images of all. You may well regret it afterwards if you don’t have any images with your child. We realise that you might feel a bit uncomfortable but would encourage you to pop on a little make-up and choose a nice outfit. We can just capture a few images here and there…you might be surprised how much you grow to love them after all!

Of course, absolutely! We fully encourage this. Please see this photo shoot as a potential family shoot as well. Capturing the unique interaction of your first born and/or other siblings with your newborn can be quite emotional and will be so precious in years to come when they are fighting and falling out!!

Prior to your viewing session, we will prepare a few images with complete skin retouching, to show you how this would look. Whichever images you choose to purchase will also include full skin retouching before the image(s) go to production.