Newborns...Precious...

NO newborns in the title does not imply that I am having one! Just in case your mind wandered!!! Newborn photography!!

New born photography...Where to start?! Tricky would be a good start! I did my very first newborn shoot last week and well let's just say that it had less than desirable results. It was just not a good day for the baby, she was 10 days old and I really should have scheduled the shoot for her first week but I was a bit afraid of putting to much stress on the momma.

This newborn is the baby that was in the belly of this momma when I did her shoot about a month ago. So the first night we tried the shoot baby T she was just NOT wanting to sleep! I felt so bad for mom and dad, I think I was there somewhere around 5 hours waiting while they tried feeding, rocking, walking, *everything*....Finally I told them that I was totally fine with shooting on another day. So we decided for Sunday which would put baby T at 13 days old and boy did that have me nervous! Babies are most flexible in their first few days and sleep the most then so close to 2 weeks was pushing it! My SIL and I talked about my shoot before I went for the first one and she gave me some great pointers about keeping the baby warm during the shoot, using a space heater or heating pad and just some other ideas. But I really need to work on my assertiveness when it comes to stuff like that. I kind of feel uncomfortable telling someone else what to do with their baby! So I did the best I could the first night by *encouraging* them to do these things. Of course hind sight is 20/20 because while I am thinking I am being pushy by telling them these things they wouldn't see it that way because they don't know what the heck to do with a baby for a photo shoot! If they did they wouldn't be hiring me, right?!

Results from the *sleepless* shoot!











SO after much thinking I did a lot of research in how to make babies most comfortable to achieve the results I wanted. I emailed mom the night before the shoot and told her that we really needed the house to be about 85-90 degrees and that truly the baby would work best if she was about 90 degrees, keep the baby up ALL morning, and then feed her as much as she'll take before I get there. Then a couple of things I didn't say were that the baby should not be able to smell mom during the shoot because their natural instinct is to want them and for mom and dad to not try and help because if they do their worry about how the baby is acting will actually make it worse. And I would be bringing a space heater...

So mom did perfect for getting their house good and hot! She fed baby T and put her to sleep while I was setting up and then when it was time to start the shoot I got her positioned where I wanted her and almost instantly she started to cry. I immediately thought we were gonna have a replay of the prior shoot. So I kind of *took over* from dad and started rocking baby T and put her closer to the heater (oh and I said a little prayer *smiles*) so sure enough once she got good and warm and dad wandered off she settled right down. Then from there it was pretty much a breeze! I was so HOT and SO excited! I literally had sweat pouring into my eyes and couldn't do a dang thing about it LOL!! I kept the heater on the whole time and I promised mom I was NOT overheating baby T! I think she was just stunned at how well it was going!

You can click on any of the pictures to get a better look!!












So the final results were amazing! I am so very thrilled with how everything turned out and I am pretty proud of myself for getting the job done!!























The end...