I welcome sweet Elise to the world.  Here she is, 5 days new in her heirloom portrait finery!

I do get lucky, though, with being able to photograph such beautiful families.  The littlest one was so happy – he woke up with a smile and I don’t think I saw it leave his face all afternoon.  Their little girl had enough energy and personality to make any photographer happy – perhaps my only challenge was keeping that shutter speed high enough to make sure I didn’t get any motion blur!  And her elder sister was a treat – one of those rare tweens who didn’t mind helping with the shoot and working with me to elicit great expressions from her younger siblings.

Here is a sneak peek from the session – just a few black and whites (this session is so remarkable in black and white!) and one color!  Truly, I must have the best clients in all the world!

And one color image – she was such a lovely soul:

When I arrived with all my newborn set up (nothing takes more hands than everything needed to do baby shots!), I was greeted with tall windows in an “L” shape. That made getting the light rather tricky since I had less directionality. There was also a lot of direct sunlight spilling into the room onto the wood floors – and reflecting up with strong color casts. One of the first things we had to do was close the blinds a bit (which unfortunately kills some of the light) and then lay out black fleece on the floor where the light was still coming in. I’m very lucky in that my clients are always really nice about moving furniture when needed – and this time we moved a large ficus and some miscellaneous furniture to make sure we had the best light and a clean set up.

The grandparents arrived right on time and we started with their shots. They were so proud of their grandson (the first for that family!) and I just loved photographing their happiness. Both grandmother and grandfather took turns holding the little guy and he was so happy to be in their arms! I have the most beautiful shots of the baby looking up adoringly at them as the ‘coo’ and love him. He is one very lucky little boy!

After the family shots, we brought out the props for the baby art. Our little guy was kind enough to fall right to sleep for us! He was easy to position and looked so happy resting peacefully. I don’t do the more extreme ‘head on hands’ shots and instead concentrated on the beauty of this perfect and very loved little person. He was fortunate enough to have been born to be cherished by a great set of parents and I think that peacefulness is what I wanted most to capture. Each family has its own vibe and personality and it is the job of the professional photographer to understand that flow and photograph it respectfully. All the props chosen for this shoot were reflective of that family’s style.

Newborn work is surprisingly hard – even though babies don’t exactly run away from you. Portrait work is so much more clicking a shutter and requires a huge amount of concentration. I think as runners are ‘in the moment’, so too are photographers. And photographing a newborn shoot is just as exhausting as running several miles. But photography has the advantage of producing such beautiful results!

A huge congratulations to this wonderful family on their firstborn. He’s a lucky little man to be born into so much love.

For me, this session was a treat!  I always welcome the chance to do indoor sessions – it’s wonderful to shoot in a location where baby is safe and comfortable and where she has all her toys.  But also, it means a lot since homes may change and this is a memory of life at this time and at this house.  Anyone who has a child knows how soon life changes as a child grows older.