Maternity & Newborn Portraiture
Beyond Snapshots and Department Store Studios
These nine months while your baby is in your womb and the first twelve months of your baby’s life are full of miraculous, rapid, and beautiful changes to your bodies and lives. Some days may seem to slowly drag along, but suddenly you will blink your eyes only to open them to see a child standing in front of you while you wonder, “Where did my tiny baby go?” You will undoubtedly want to have pictures to remember this time, and the world of professional photography today has expanded far beyond the department store studios of our parents’ days. Many modern photographers offer a new style of custom photography that is all about choice, experience, and creating timeless images customized to your desires to memorialize these special moments in your and your baby’s lives.
Custom or boutique photography can often seem overwhelming when the many choices are presented to you, so here is a guide that explains the basics.
Choose your setting
There are three basic types of settings to choose from for your portrait session:
At Home
Sessions at your home are intimate and personal. Your photographer will often use natural lighting and can photograph you and/or your baby in your natural environment to document simple moments of everyday life. At home sessions often have a candid or photojournalistic style with little posing.
Outdoors
Outdoor sessions offer virtually endless settings, from natural parks, gardens, fields or farms, to downtown alleys, doorways, and railroads. Think outside the box and consider an outdoor flower market, an apple orchard, or a sidewalk café! The colors and variety of nature and the world around us can be used to create wonderfully unique images.
In Studio
Studio sessions boast the benefit of controlled lighting, multiple backdrops, and the ability to shoot at any time of day, regardless of light and weather. Studio portraits can be classic, timeless, posed, and dramatic.
Choose your clothes
The clothes you choose for your portraits should match your own personality and the session location. Casual, classic, simple, or dressy – whatever you choose should be comfortable! If there will be more than one person in the images, it’s often a good idea to coordinate, but don’t match. Choose solid, saturated colors that look nice together, and avoid busy prints or anything with a logo or wording. Accessories like jewelry, scarves, and hats add style and personality. Consider layering to get many different looks out of one outfit. Newborns are usually best photographed mostly in their birthday suit, as clothes tend to swallow them up and hide all those cute wrinkles and rolls! Many photographers will have props and accessories to use for newborn portraits, like knitted hats, wraps, and blankets.
Choose your photographer
Most professional photographers use websites to showcase their work, explain their services and pricing, and communicate with clients. Aside from word of mouth, online search engines like Google are a great place to start searching for a portrait photographer in your area. Keep in mind what you are looking for in your session, because not all photographers offer every option mentioned above in this article. Some only work in studios, some only on location. Consider contacting the photographers you are interested in to set up a consultation in their studio or on the phone. A good photographer will be patient, answer all your questions, and have lot of suggestions for your session. They may also have samples of their products for you to browse.
Questions to ask a potential photographer:
- How much do you charge? Does that fee include anything other than session time?
- Do you offer digital files, and do those include a print release so we can print our own?
- Do you charge a travel fee for on location sessions?
- How many outfits can we include?
- How much time will I have to order prints after the session?
- Do you offer packages that include maternity and newborn sessions?
- Do you offer packages that include more than one session during the baby’s first year?
- What is your policy for rescheduling a session?
- Do you offer products like birth announcements, albums, canvas gallery wraps, or framed prints?
Your pregnancy and your baby’s first year are going to pass by so quickly, it is important to have professional quality portraits that will last for the rest of your lives. Today there are so many options for custom professional photographers out there; if you look hard enough you are sure to find someone who fits both your style and your budget. With these tips, hopefully you feel prepared to begin your search for a photographer today and you will be on your way to owning beautiful portraits of you and your little one to treasure forever. With luck, you will find an amazing photographer you will want to photograph your family for years to come!