Capturing Memories: A Newborn Family Session at Our Des Moines Studio

I was recently talking to a co-worker and she mentioned that she knew she wanted to be a mom from the time she was a little girl. She just knew. She knew that far more than she knew what type of job she wanted to have, or if she wanted to live in the city or the country, or have a big house, or live in in an apartment. She knew that motherhood was for her. I love that for her. So, when baby does arrive, it's important to get those photos and get them often! You did the maternity photos of the gorgeous belly and now you need the newborn photos, but you also need the family portion of the newborn photos--come on down to my studio! I love doing including family members in the newborn session in the studio. Now that my I moved my studio to Mainframe Studios, it's really convenient.

I typically start all my newborn sessions with baby on a white backdrop on the posing table. I do what is called 'Mugshots' and I capture different facial expressions along with macro shots and baby's tiny features. This helps if baby is wide awake and helps them expel some energy before the sleepy wrapped portion of the session. I love the simplicity of the white-on-white set-up. There are no colors vying for attention or competing against baby.

After getting his wiggles out and a little bit of milk, I swaddled Walker and put the cutest bear bonnet on him and had him hold a matching bear lovey. I used my new Hello Little crate for this portion and one of the crate magnets, but I positioned him upright so it was difficult to see.

I love shooting newborns sessions against a neutral seamless backdrop. For this family, we opted to use the Thunder Gray seamless paper by Savage. I also used this color for the couple portion of the maternity session. I love capturing the same family pose but slightly different. This gives the family options for different crops and orientations (Facebook vs Instagram, vertical vs horizontal framed).

I recently attended an online workshop about 'baby led posing' for newborn photography and the host of the workshop talked about how she felt it was very important that babies be placed in positions that were most comfortable for them, and she strongly discouraged photographers for manipulating babies into 'unnatural poses' such as the taco pose and froggy, where a composite is necessary. Those are poses I typically don't execute in my normal workflow, but I do find the images that I love the best in my galleries are the ones that do come organically or with slight prompting. My family images are traditionally always my favorite images, because you can just feel the love!

I always get capture images of each parent individually with baby. I typically start with Dad, then do family shots, and end with Mom's photos. It's normal to need to take a feeding break during the family portions or immediately afterwards--especially for breastfed babies. I allow for unlimited feedings in my studio. I believe it's important for parents to follow baby's feeding cues and to not follow a clock or a schedule. If a baby is displaying hunger cues, it's important to pause the session and feed. I loved meeting Walker and seeing his parents glow up to Mom and Dad. He's got some really great parents and they are going to go on some amazing adventures together!