Our gift and a few words about newborn photography

Our little nugget of love and joy has warmed all of our hearts to the brim.  Is he spoiled much? Is it even possible to spoil a newborn? Do I care and am I going to stop?  No way.  This was my first foray into the land of newborn photography; I was both excited and anxious but in the end I learned some things and I did get almost all of the shots I set out to get.  So what did I learn?  I learned that the younger the baby the slightly easier it is to “pose them” and they tend to sleep a lot more which helps but even at a tender age they have personality.

Eli was just 3 weeks old when these were taken so while he wasn’t going to roll off anywhere.  His sleep patterns were still erratic plus he is a wiggler; I just had to go with the flow.  I picked him up to place him under the Christmas tree and he was sound asleep until he heard the camera click.  From that I learned to turn my camera to silent mode.  What is paramount in newborn photography is the safety of the baby.  Never leave them unattended always have a parent right there or very close by.  It is also important to keep the area you are photographing the baby in warm.  If you don’t supply your own props then use their crib, their toys or something that belongs to another family member.  Baby blankets on the floor or the sofa work well as does putting the little one on the parents bed.

I tried to flip him onto his stomach for some shots but he was not having it.  He sleeps on his back and that’s how he wanted to remain so there went that list of poses out the window.  What worked well for me were the shots I took when someone was holding him like the ones here with my son and daughter in law.  Being held by someone will often get you a facial expression or look that is just wonderful because they are with someone familiar.  A nice thing about newborn photography is that there are so many things you can photograph.  Take photos of the little fingers, the feet, a hand holding a parents finger and so forth.  Now unless the parents are adamant about just having sweet baby shots, photographing them as they happen to be behaving makes for good photos too.  Crying, yawning, sleeping with a funny look on their face whatever they may be doing because in the end it will be a precious slice of what they were like at that age and time.

     

I call this one his Hey Macarena pose.  Yes, I’m dating myself…

  

And of course we have the “Nana! I don’t wanna anymore!” shot 🙂

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from my end of the internet to yours ♥