My 5 Most Memorable Shoots
I’ve been photographing little ones for over 6 years now, so have met hundreds of gorgeous families in that time! I could sit and tell you about all of them for hours – in this profession, you never forget a client, as it’s such a special time in their lives that they are investing in, so I invest in them just as much, and the minute you walk through the studio door, you’re a friend!
You always see ‘horror’ stories from newborn shoots with sick, wee and poo across social media, and in all honesty those shots are pure ‘luck’ because if you’ve just had a baby projectile vomit everywhere, the first thing you think of is definitely NOT ‘hang on, let me get my camera!’. So whilst I have got the stories, I don’t have the gross photos to go with them – sorry. Also, around 5 years ago, I was trained how to swaddle and create pretty wraps for your babies, which meant I could leave their nappy on for the duration of the shoot – eliminating a lot of mess and stress from sessions!
But I still want to share with you my top 5 memorable shoots – not all are about things that went wrong but just some of my favourite stories to share…
1. The Poo
Let’s get this one out the way first, shall we?! This shoot was actually with a member of my family, so I’m sure Mummy won’t mind me sharing it! It was also one of my earliest sessions after my newborn posing training, so I was keen to get it right and was following all of my ideas I had planned beforehand. Little Harry had been a superstar, slept like a trooper the whole time, even with an audience of Mummy, Daddy, Big Sister, Myself and My Fiance (He’s not usually at shoots, it was just we were all there to meet Harry for the first time since his arrival).
He had rocked his beanbag posing (wrapped) and my confidence was growing, so I thought it was time to move onto the prop shots, and for these I was going to remove all clothing and wraps so we could see his cute little bottom. I carefully padded out my bucket, lined it with a gorgeous new grey fur (that I had bought especially for this session) and I made sure none of Harry’s skin would be touching the prop – which would make him uncomfortable – and transferred him from the beanbag into the bucket. Easy! He even let me put a little hat and bow tie on, and he smiled!
But…what I didn’t realise at that time, was that smile meant he had a huge amount of wind…you know what’s coming, right? It wasn’t just wind. In seconds, his tummy rumbled and my beautifully soft grey fur ended up yellow/brown and matted…Harry on the other hand, remained quite happy, calm and asleep! Mummy was definitely more horrified than anyone else but it was quickly sorted with the fur going straight into a hot wash and it cleaned up perfectly – no issues at all really. But the experience was ideal as this is when I realised that actually, keeping a babies nappy on still allows for super cute photos and it keeps the whole session far more relaxed because parent’s aren’t worrying ‘what if…’.
2. The Vomit
There’s no escaping vomit! I can protect myself from bowel movements now that I keep baby’s nappy on, but what comes out of the top is uncontrollable, let’s face it! So I do experience baby sick quite often…and it’s completely natural and absolutely fine. A perk(?!) of the job? No, that’s the squishy cuddles, but with the good comes the bad and it all comes out in the wash at the end of the day., and so this story is about beautiful little Aisling.
The family requested not to share any images online so there’s no accompanying photograph for this story, but it’s a memorable one for me as they are a truly lovely family! Taking it back to 2019, Aisling’s gorgeous family and gorgeous big sister joined Aisling, a gorgeous baby too, who after a nice big feed settled and relaxed into posing perfectly. We had finished her individual photographs in no time at all and I had wrapped Aisling up so she remained calm and settled, ready to take some photos with her big sister, who needed a little more encouragement. Just at the point where big sister was ready for action, wooosh! I have honestly never seen projectile baby sick quite like little Aisling produced in that very moment. Where she had that stored, I’ve no idea! But a quick scoop up, the first wrap layer taken off and in the washing pile, a cuddle from Mummy and we were set to go again with sibling and whole family photographs!
The family requested not to share any images online so there’s no accompanying photograph for this story, but it’s a memorable one for me as they are a truly lovely family! Taking it back to 2019, Aisling’s gorgeous family and gorgeous big sister joined Aisling, a gorgeous baby too, who after a nice big feed settled and relaxed into posing perfectly. We had finished her individual photographs in no time at all and I had wrapped Aisling up so she remained calm and settled, ready to take some photos with her big sister, who needed a little more encouragement. Just at the point where big sister was ready for action, wooosh! I have honestly never seen projectile baby sick quite like little Aisling produced in that very moment. Where she had that stored, I’ve no idea! But a quick scoop up, the first wrap layer taken off and in the washing pile, a cuddle from Mummy and we were set to go again with sibling and whole family photographs!
3. The Entertaining Sibling
And now some more heartwarming stories ! This one is just from last week, and Mummy & Daddy are keeping the photographs as a surprise for the rest of their family, so you’ll have to just believe me when I describe the utter cuteness of big brother James!
I love including siblings in your newborn shoots however not all siblings are too keen on the idea of a new baby in the house or being in brand new surroundings, especially after the lockdown period. James on the other hand was quite the opposite and simply one of the best 2 year olds I have ever met! Considering he had never met me before he visited the studio last week; within minutes he was telling me all about his brand new baby sister and quickly realised that his toy cars would glide brilliantly across my wooden studio floor. Still mindful of keeping his distance from me (amazing for such a young lad!) he stayed over near Daddy whilst Mummy fed his baby sister, and we played with his cars, rolling them across the studio until I was ready to get to work.
At every break for feeding, changing or new prop set ups, James was desperate to play cars with me again, but simply replied with ‘OK’ if we explained we needed to get the next photographs taken. We captured the most gorgeous sibling photographs of him, he listened to every word with intent and was a pure joy to work with, and super polite! In fact, when the family came back to view their photographs earlier this week, James stood at the studio door holding Daddy’s hand and when asked if he would like to come in, he replied ‘Oh yes please!’ in the most adorable way imaginable for a 2 year old. And guess what…the cars came that day too!
I love including siblings in your newborn shoots however not all siblings are too keen on the idea of a new baby in the house or being in brand new surroundings, especially after the lockdown period. James on the other hand was quite the opposite and simply one of the best 2 year olds I have ever met! Considering he had never met me before he visited the studio last week; within minutes he was telling me all about his brand new baby sister and quickly realised that his toy cars would glide brilliantly across my wooden studio floor. Still mindful of keeping his distance from me (amazing for such a young lad!) he stayed over near Daddy whilst Mummy fed his baby sister, and we played with his cars, rolling them across the studio until I was ready to get to work.
At every break for feeding, changing or new prop set ups, James was desperate to play cars with me again, but simply replied with ‘OK’ if we explained we needed to get the next photographs taken. We captured the most gorgeous sibling photographs of him, he listened to every word with intent and was a pure joy to work with, and super polite! In fact, when the family came back to view their photographs earlier this week, James stood at the studio door holding Daddy’s hand and when asked if he would like to come in, he replied ‘Oh yes please!’ in the most adorable way imaginable for a 2 year old. And guess what…the cars came that day too!
4. The Most Awake Baby
This is a tricky one! Lots of babies stay awake – however much they have been sleeping through the night, or even if they normally always sleep during the day, so it’s never a surprise to me if the day you come for photographs, they are awake the longest! For this story, I’m going to choose baby Emma.
She is the youngest baby I have ever photographed at just 4 days new. She did sleep at the beginning of her session, allowing me to create the best squishy newborn poses in the knowledge she was safe, relaxed and settled but, when we moved onto the second colour scheme and prop shots, she decided she wanted to take a look around and see what was going on and as you can see, these made for adorable photographs, because it’s not very often you see a newborn with their eyes open. Wide awake, she remained calm and relaxed throughout and was quite happy to be swaddled and moved between props and posing with big sister Kathryn the whole time. I’ve also been very lucky to follow Emma’s journey over her first year and she has grown into a beautiful little girl!
She is the youngest baby I have ever photographed at just 4 days new. She did sleep at the beginning of her session, allowing me to create the best squishy newborn poses in the knowledge she was safe, relaxed and settled but, when we moved onto the second colour scheme and prop shots, she decided she wanted to take a look around and see what was going on and as you can see, these made for adorable photographs, because it’s not very often you see a newborn with their eyes open. Wide awake, she remained calm and relaxed throughout and was quite happy to be swaddled and moved between props and posing with big sister Kathryn the whole time. I’ve also been very lucky to follow Emma’s journey over her first year and she has grown into a beautiful little girl!
5. The Sleepiest Baby
All of my babies sleep, right? Wrong! Yes, I have lots of tricks up my sleeve to get them to sleep (eventually), and most of my photographs show adorable sleepy babies – because no-one wants to see the outtakes, or many don’t realise that sometimes those sleepy poses can take up to 2 hours to create! But I have a definite winner for this category, still to this day, and this is gorgeous George.
Oh little George stole my heart completely (and again when he came back for his paint splash session in February this year). When booking, Mummy had requested older newborn photographs to match those taken from when her daughters were babies. At this time, I hadn’t done many older baby sessions (how times change!) and I was still under the false pretenses that I may not get ‘newborn’ poses from him because he was older than 2 weeks – but Mummy was fine with that. How wrong I was!
I actually think that it was George’s session that gave me the confidence to be able to work with and pose older babies. In all honesty, he was a dream boat! He was awake for the first part of the session, smiling and babbling away, but as soon as he was swaddled and wrapped up nice and cosy and in my drawer(!), he was out like a light and I could have done a whole newborn session from start to finish with him. Mummy couldn’t believe it either!
It was a great day and it really showed me the importance of getting the right temperature and making sure the baby feels safe and secure. It also proves you really can bring to life any vision in your mind, whatever their age, up to about 12-15 weeks. In fact, I still have this photograph up in my home office, over a year on, and it remains one of my favourites.
Oh little George stole my heart completely (and again when he came back for his paint splash session in February this year). When booking, Mummy had requested older newborn photographs to match those taken from when her daughters were babies. At this time, I hadn’t done many older baby sessions (how times change!) and I was still under the false pretenses that I may not get ‘newborn’ poses from him because he was older than 2 weeks – but Mummy was fine with that. How wrong I was!
I actually think that it was George’s session that gave me the confidence to be able to work with and pose older babies. In all honesty, he was a dream boat! He was awake for the first part of the session, smiling and babbling away, but as soon as he was swaddled and wrapped up nice and cosy and in my drawer(!), he was out like a light and I could have done a whole newborn session from start to finish with him. Mummy couldn’t believe it either!
It was a great day and it really showed me the importance of getting the right temperature and making sure the baby feels safe and secure. It also proves you really can bring to life any vision in your mind, whatever their age, up to about 12-15 weeks. In fact, I still have this photograph up in my home office, over a year on, and it remains one of my favourites.
There are so many more stories I could share with you, but hopefully these have given you a laugh and a smile while taking a break with a cuppa of choice!
Every baby has their own personality right from day one, and I’m usually one of the first people to meet a newborn when they come for their session, especially in the current climate, so I consider myself extremely fortunate to be in such a privileged position, and I look forward to being able to share more stories with you soon!
Are you ready to book your newborn baby photoshoot? I’d love to have a chat! You can call me on 07852264151 or message me via the contact page on this site.
