More in-studio baby portraits!

Jessica is a first time mom and brought her sweet baby boy in for his first photo session last week. Declan is 6 weeks old and I almost said no to Jessica b/c I have found that this age is hard to photograph. Not only are they still in that phase of a lot of involuntary movements with their arms (which get in the way of the photos) but they can get fussy pretty quickly too...esp when asked to model and pose a lot! I certainly don't mind being around this sweet, chubby phase but my goal is to get as many great shots of this newborn phase as possible for the parents and I have found that I have had to do re-shoots b/c of the quirkiness of their rapidly growing bodies. Consequently, my new 'rules' for baby shoots include the fresh-out-of-the-oven babies (less than 3 weeks old) when all they do is sleep, and then not again until they are about 3 months old, or holding their heads up while on their tummies.

I have learned a lot from my friend and colleague Liz Vance, who is a fabulous maternity and baby photographer as well as a colleague with NILMDTS. It's how I met her and I am thrilled about that connection. She has encouraged me to 'go for it' with in-studio shoots with maternity and newborns. It's been a fun learning curve and I am grateful to her for pushing me into an area where I have been very skeptical of my own skills (i.e. artifical light!) and just out of my comfort zone.

My little photography community of friends has been such a blessing. It can be a lonely job working solo, no office mates to chat and laugh with, hunkering down in the office/studio by oneself in the quiet of the night....but meeting up on occasion and talking 'shop' via email or chat is good enough to keep me going and it's certainly good enough for me to say "I will never work in the corporate world for 'the man' ever again"! I love having my own business and not having to report to anyone but myself (or my kids).


So check out Declan and his mom!