Tomato Photo – Newborn Photography, Children Photography, Baby Photography, Maternity Photography

Hello all,

Newborn photography is perhaps one of the most challenging form of photography mainly for 2 reasons:
1. Taking the newborn out of their comfort zone by not wearing anything for the session
2. Managing the parents’ mood – It is very important that parents stay calm

and extra reason is when there are siblings involve…

When you took the baby out of their comfort zone, typically, they would make some noise (their way of communicating to us) and so we need to give them what they want… It is pure and simple, you give newborn what they want, they shall give you SOME of what you want. So it is an art to understand how to handle the young newborn so they can be calm and contented.

Managing parents’ mood is very important because, calm parents generally equal to calm baby. Somehow, the newborn can sense the “stress” level and the newborn tend to react to the situation too. So understanding how to manage parents and newborn is probably the most crucial part of the session in order to get great images.

When there are older siblings are involves, there is a different way in managing them to ensure you get good images for newborn and good images of the family (most clients want a nice family pictures!!!), so it is very challenging to manage all 3 elements together while creating images that I would be proud of.

Then there is a “Newborn Safety” issue.

There isn’t any barrier for anyone who would offer their “Newborn Photography”, although, I always encourage people to follow their dream and pursue photography so more people can be in the market preserving memories for their clients, it is always worries me when I see a very stylish but “questionable” pose for the newborn. I have changed my way of capturing the images without have to put anyone in a position that they feel uncomfortable with and still producing great images. There is a balance between commercial value to artistic value to the safety value… To do things well, you have to know that balance… if you can pin point that balance so well, let me assure you that business will always be good and you will always enjoy creating and preserving memories for clients.

I did a newborn session in Dec and it was really challenging, I believe, I might have spend about 4-5 hours to get the session done. Mainly because, the newborn prefer to be clothes and cuddle most of the time, so there are a lot of “waiting” time so to speak. Apart from that, the older sibling come back from school, tired and really cranky… and there isn’t a possibility to reschedule it to the next day because daddy is extremely busy, so it was a little stressful… hahaha, main worried is I won’t get any family shots… against all odds and lots of articulating with children…. I am doing ok… and it is so nice to hear from clients to give me a testimonial through email…

Hi Hart,

I cannot begin to express how happy we are with the beautiful pictures you took of our newborn son and his two big sisters. It is something we will treasure for a lifetime to come. I already find myself looking at them almost everyday and I feel so very proud. Seeing Tommy now – already six weeks old and growing taller and taller by the day – I can see why it is so important to capture them in those first precious days. I want to thank you for your patience and your tenderness in handling our little boy. And the same goes for our two girls. Although Olivia was in a very bad mood when she came home you have managed to make her feel at ease and put a smile on her face. The pictures you took of her are amazing, they really capture her true spirit. And so are the pictures of our eldest daughter. Again: thank you so much for everything!

Warm regards,

Maartje