A couple of weeks ago I traveled to Manassas Park to meet Baby R., who was a bit older than most of my newborn clients but still posed beautifully for both asleep and awake shots. I am so happy and honored her Mom and Dad chose me to be their newborn photographer and to capture this very special period in the lives of their family! Thank you!
Baby R. was about 6 weeks old at the time of the session. When working with newborns this age, I usually tell parents that most likely there are no guarantees for “asleep” baby portraits and that most definitely we won’t get any “curled up” poses (due to newborn’s natural physiology “curling up” naturally only occurs in the first 2-3 weeks of life). We agreed to focus on candid/lifestyle portraiture and (if we are lucky and R. cooperates a bit) capture some semi-posed pictures on black background. The “asleep” shots were on the agenda, but we agreed to “play it by ear” during the photo session, depending on how R. does.
Let me tell you – we did really well and Mom and Dad are now working to select their favorites from a gallery of over 100 (that’s right, one HUNDRED) proofs! The entire photo session took about 3 hours, but we did candid pictures with Mom and with Dad, and family portraits, and “low-key” posed shots on black background, and we even snuck in a couple of ‘asleep” shots, which are among my all time favorite newborn pictures now! R. has a gorgeous nursery (a result of efforts of many family members, as far as I understand), beautifully designed and furnished, and we took a series of very sweet and heartwarming “mommy-and-me” pictures there. What a session! Hope Mom and Dad love their pictures! Here are my favorites from the session!
First we did some portraits on black background. In Dad’s hands:
In Mom’s hands:
So awake and alert (and a little fussy, but nothing Daddy can’t handle):
LOVE this image, both in black and white and in color. If someone took an image like this of me with my sons, I’d have a huge canvas of it up on the wall!
Dad was being so amazing – a totally awesome model!
Gorgeous family!
Okay, on to the “mommy-and-me” portraits, I took some wonderful and sweet ones in the nursery:
Mom wanted to include this wonderful authentic Peruvian blanket in the session, but before I could come up with the best way to incorporate it in the shot, R. fell asleep, so we just wrapped her up in it and I think it worked out great!
Love the colors and the composition of this family portrait: In the meantime, I also took this 100% candid image of Mom and Dad with their baby girl – there is something very sweet about this image and I like it very much.
I was saving the best for last – my absolute favorite asleep shots. I am so in love with them, everything worked out and came together so well so we could take these shots! Thank you, baby R.! The first set – I can’t decide if I like the black and white or the color one best:
Thanks for reading the post, hope you liked the pictures!