A couple of weekends ago I traveled to Arlington to meet newborn baby boy M. M was about 3 weeks old at the time of the session and was already quite strong baby (holding his head up to look around and check out this new person with a camera). Seems like Mom and Dad traveled around the country quite a bit before settling down in Northern Virginia, and I am so happy they did and that they chose me to be M’s newborn photographer – because the photos turned out really beautiful!
Mom warned me that baby M. is a “light sleeper” (and, turns out, she was right!). So, we made sure M. was warm and well-fed, and jumped to “family pictures” first, so I could focus on M’s portraits for the rest of the session. M did really great for a little bit (the first photo below is Mom’s “pick” for their family portrait – and I really like it too! It was one of the first photos I took, and I love the happy and relaxed feel of it!).
Then, as M. woke up, we did a few “awake” shots on black background with Mom and Dad, and he was very happy to play and look around.
This one is my absolute favorite from the session, I think parents love it too! This little boy is going to be a heart-breaker
Then M. fell asleep and did really well for the rest of the session (he startled awake a couple of times, just because he is a light sleeper, but went right back to sleep after a few seconds of soothing and comforting). M. has beautiful lush curly hair and I snatched a couple of close ups of his curls as well. The last two “asleep” pictures are my favorite!
“At home” newborn photo sessions require quite a bit of preparation before the session – since I don’t have all my studio gear and props available and at hand, I use the newborn questionnaire and the pre-session consultation with Mom to understand what type of pictures parents are looking for and what type of props and setups suits their style the most. Depending on the session, I usually need to make 2-3 trips to the car. M. lives in an apartment/condo building, so I packed relatively “light” for the session to make the transfer of all the gear and props from the underground garage to M’s apartment easy. Still, I had my camera bag, background stands, a posing beanbag and a large suitcase with props (getting lost around the garage looking for the elevator didn’t help either, I’m quite clumsy with directions and finding my way around. As you can see from the photos above, we still got a lot of variety and some beautiful photos!