This is Baby Boy. It’s not his name as he doesn’t quite have one yet – both of his parents are teachers and so they are faced the tricky job of choosing a name when so many of them have different associations but actually I quite like Baby Boy, so fingers crossed it sticks!
So he might not have a name yet but he sure did have a lot of smiles! And before you go thinking, oh poor deluded photographer, that is wind and not smiling, I’ll tell you that a recent study has shown that even newborn babies smile out of a sense of general wellbeing so I was right all along. They are happy and not windy and that’s an end to the matter as far as I’m concerned 🙂
So he was sleeping (very happily) and was kind enough to let me gently move him through a good selection of poses and outfits. So I though it would be a great opportunity to road test my new newborn posing truck as I’ve been waiting for a chance to use it. Prop work requires a really quite settled baby – it’s never anything uncomfortable for them obviously but if they’re not in a good deep sleep, then the transfer to another surface can wake them up a little bit.
Experience has taught me to look for the perfect time to make the shift and I judged it was about as a good as time as I was going to get. So Baby Boy was in a perfect deep slumber and so I set up the little scene and transferred him across while he was tucked up fast asleep on his tummy. He immediately woke up and made his displeasure felt so what do I know? Hey, babies are the boss and your session will always be baby led. There’s absolutely no way of knowing what they’re going to do I suppose because they don’t know either so I keep everything super warm, safe and cosy for them and I’ll freely admit that there’s an element of finger crossing that they favour me with their sleepiness 🙂 Anyway, he woke up and decided that as he was awake, he might as well have a snack which is a sensible policy. By that time, we had all kind of fallen in love with the little truck idea so when he had a full tummy, I dressed him up in a cute little outfit (also new so double bonus there) and we took a few minutes to get him settled. This time he was happy to have a little snooze in the truck as his expression clearly demonstrates!
Lots of people worry that their babies will cry in a newborn photo shoot and the fact of the matter is, yep, they probably will. It doesn’t mean that I just give up and send you home though, we just take some time to work through whatever is bothering them and continue on our merry way.
Newborn Photography
A newborn photo shoot is best when your baby is between 5 and 10 days old as this is when they are at their maximum sleepiness and poseability to capture those dreamy shots. For this reason, I definitely recommend that you book when you are pregnant as this is one less thing to worry about scheduling when you’ve just got home from the hospital. We make an appointment for your due date plus 7 days and then adjust it as needed.
My newborn shoots include your three favourite digital images which you select from your online gallery a few weeks after your photo shoot – I don’t make you attend a sales or viewing session. Sessions take place in my warm and cosy studio in Crawley Down and cost £95.