I’ve been a newborn photographer pretty much since it became mainstream in the UK (it was big in the USA before it made it’s way over the pond to us) and there’s no doubt that I’ve learned a lot along the way.  Most of it isn’t actually to do with the photography aspect of it surprisingly.

Lesson 1 – Patience

That is the very first thing that you need to master if you want to be a newborn photographer.  Luckily for me, I’ve always had quite a patient nature but boy has it been tested on the odd occasion.  I’ve learned that there is no rushing a newborn and there is no point trying to.  You simply have to work with them and wait until they are ready before you start to move along with whatever you had planned.

Lesson 2 – Adaptability

Along a similar vein, you have to learn to be adaptable.  When I first started out, I used to have these complex session plans and I quickly realised that a newborn really doesn’t care about what I want and they’re going to do things their own way and in their own time.  So, while I still have some ideas around the props and setups that parents have picked and the style they want to create, I don’t really formulate much of a plan for the session itself until I actually start actually working with the baby.  That way, I can get a feel for how they’re doing, what they’re liking and not and I can create a road map through the photo shoot that makes the most of their strengths and keeps them as comfy and calm as possible.

Lesson 3 – Always Have Insurance

I don’t mean like Liability Insurance (though that’s obviously important) but in the early days, I could quite easily wreck a shot by not taking it until everything was absolutely perfect including the tiniest details like finger positioning.  That’s not to say that I don’t care about the finer details any more as they’re obviously lovely to have but you can quite quickly ruin a setup with fussing too much on one aspect and then you have nothing at all. So when say that you should have insurance, I take a shot that’s 90% of what I want and is still perfectly lovely before I risk adjusting for the final 10%.   There’s a saying in photography that is particularly true when it comes to working with the tiniest of clients and that is ‘connection not perfection’ – a photograph should capture the moment and encapsulate a precious memory.  It’s not super likely that you’ll ever not love to look back at images of those early days because the position of a little foot isn’t absolutely textbook!

Lesson 4 – Safety First

This is an obvious one and clearly all my props and set ups have been designed to be risk free as far as your baby is concerned.  However, there are some poses that I don’t do that you might see from other photographers because I feel they introduce an element of risk into the session.  Also, when parents bring along items that they’d like their baby posed on or in, I’ll always do my best but I’ve learned to say no if I feel that I can’t absolutely guarantee that I can do it safely.

Lesson 5 – Happy Mum, Happy Newborn

Did you know that your baby doesn’t even know that they are a separate being from their mum for about the first six months of their life? So it’s not really surprising that if parents are feeling stressed out or anxious that the newborn is going to pick up on this.  For this reason, my studio is designed to be warm, relaxing, and super comfy so new parents can relax and enjoy watching their images being created.   I might be working with your baby but I’ve always got an eye on you to see if you’re feeling happy so we can make adjustments, provide distractions, talk through the session or do whatever makes your newborn photo shoot a memory that you’ll enjoy looking back on.

Lesson 6 – Let it Flow

At the end of the day, as a photographer, it’s lovely to have control over absolutely everything from your equipment and lighting to the model themselves.  This is how we realise our ‘creative vision’ but being a newborn photographer isn’t about what I think of the images that we make together.  It’s about freezing those precious early days in time and giving you a gallery that you’ll treasure looking back on as your baby becomes a toddler, child and an adult.  So I think the most important lesson for any newborn photographer is to just let the session flow as it will and let go a little bit of our inner control freak.  Good things happen when you let the little life your working with express themselves however they’re most comfortable.