The NEW ARRIVALS portrait session is done when baby is between 7 and 10 days old. For alot of my clients, coming for their newborn photos is their first trip with their new baby!
Here are some tips to help you prepare for your newborn portrait session.
- Ideally, we want your baby to sleep for most of the session. Keep this in mind when planning out your day for the session. If baby spends the morning having a big sleep then you want him up to come for portraits, he probably will not want to sleep during the session.
- Please FULLY feed baby before you come for the session. Babies can take a long time to feed so it would be best if you can feed just before you are ready to come over.
- plan to arrive here at 15 minutes prior to your actual session time so the baby has time to settle into the new environment. Once you get here you may have to feed baby some more so he/she has a nice full tummy and is ready to go back to sleep.
- please bring anything you will need to comfort baby – bottle, soother, etc.
- The majority of the photos of baby will be of baby naked. However, feel free to bring 1 favorite outfit/special toy that you may have. I have lots of hats and props that I will use during your photo session but please feel free to bring your own as well!
- We will be doing portraits of you and your spouse with the baby. Also, we sometimes have to use the parents as backdrops so keep that in mind when dressing for your portrait session.
Midtone colors (brown, red, blue, green, etc) always look nice. It allows a nice separation between your clothing and the dark background. Also, it allows us to see baby best!
Avoid wearing clothes that have stripes, patterns, logos, etc as they can be very distracting.
Also, I like to shoot against a dark background so you will want to avoid wearing dark clothing such as black, navy blue, dark brown, etc. Colors such as white or pastel colors (light pink, yellow, etc) are very bright against a dark background.
Babies will often have accidents, either on you or on me so you might also want to bring a change of clothing for the ride home. Please don’t worry about the accidents…it is all part of newborn photography!
Normally, the newborn photo sessions will take at least 2 hours so plan for 2 to 3 hours of shooting. Please do not plan to be somewhere after the session as this can make things more stressful for you.
Even though you have fully fed baby before you arrived, at some point during the session, your baby may need to be fed again. You will want to bring enough bottles just in case.
And finally, don’t worry about baby crying! I have lots of experience with newborns and crying babies and I promise we will still be able to get some nice portraits.
