Session prep and planning
I typically spend a few days planning each session. What color scheme, any special requests from the parents, are there siblings, will we be doing parent photos as well and what pose or prop will I try to start with etc. And the newborn photo session itself can take up to 3 hours on average in my Buffalo NY studio. I put my all into each and every session and give my clients 200%.
Some parents might worry that their baby and older children may not cooperate. This may lead to some stress, but I'm here to tell you that what you see as the final product of your session with me will make it look like your baby, and their sibling(s), were absolutely perfect. Here is a quick look of what can happen during the session and the final result to put some easy on your mind.
The perfect sibling photo
More often then not wrangling several children for a happy loving family photo can be a task. But there are ways to get you that amazing photo you will be proud to share and display in your home. Above is a prime example. Kids are kids, they want to explore and play, especially in a new space such as my studio. And I absolutely do not mind and actually encourage it. It helps the kids get comfortable with me and eventually I can get "The Shot". Now that shot is often made up of several different images I put together in Photoshop. With younger siblings having them near a newborn in a bucket or other prop can be unsafe, but there are ways around that as shown above.
Posing a newborn in props
Now I'll admit this is no easy task and has taken some work to learn. I have taken in person and online workshops for newborn posing to learn the safest ways to pose your baby. But not every baby will like every prop. Some babies strongly dislike the bucket pose while others love it, I plan a few extra sets just in case your baby doesn't like a prop I have planned. I do what i refer to as baby led posing, if baby shows a lot of discomfort or crying in a prop i give them a break, I retry it after a few minutes and if they still will not settle into the pose needed for that prop I move on. Making baby more angry will only make the session more difficult going forward. We all know an angry newborn is basically like the Hulk. I use a baby shusher and warm air from a heater to help baby settle into most poses I do.
