How I Became a Newborn Baby Photographer
I cover on my ‘About Me’ page exactly how I came into photography in general, but the step into newborn photography was much later on and I cover that in this blog post; how I became a newborn baby photographer.
Way back in 2014 my (then) partner’s sister who lives in Albrighton was due to have her first baby and asked me if I would photograph baby when the little bundle decided to arrive. Obviously I said yes! I started to google ‘newborn photography’ and was amazed by what I found. So many amazing and talented photographers who created stunning images of babies in these adorable poses. I was hooked.
From that I started researching how these pictures were created, and I big question I asked myself “was it safe?”, “how can I do this wonderful job?!” While browsing facebook an advert popped up for a ‘Newborn Photography Training Course’ run by the lovely ladies over at Newborn Baby Posing who sell photography props especially for baby photos. The training course would be run by Jillian Greenhill Photography who specialises in newborn photos based in the UAE. It was the best day and basically changed the course of my life!
The workshop spanned the whole day and many photographers were there from across the UK. I cover the day in another blog post. But here’s a snipet:
“Jillian showed us the safe way to handle such precious and delicate babes in a number of poses on the beanbag and also in photography props.
Jillian is also an amazing wrapper, and can wrap babies beautifully and she makes it look incredibly easy. I can tell you it is not! As well as being able to capture the newborn models that day, I also took some behind the scenes images which I share with you below. Throughout the day we had four newborn models, and each was very well behaved, but then again Jillian is a baby whisperer! She was so calm and patient with the babies; it was incredicble to watch. Jillian used a number of set ups and showed us how to move smoothly through each one with minimal disruption to the sleeping baby.”
On this workshop I also met Emily from Emily Frances Photography who photographs the brilliantly messy cake smash sessions and sitter sessions for babies who are able to sit unaided, to mark the new milestone! Emily is based over in Preston and covers Chorley and Blackburn too. If you’d like to read about how Emily started her journey and we ended up meeting at Jillan’s workshop, you can do so here.
After a number of years photographing babies in my spare room in Telford, I took the decision to visit my clients homes and photograph babies in their own environment. Still offering posed, but now also lifestyle as an alternative or as well as. It’s so lovely entering homes which are full of love and happiness and bursting with newborn baby items, showing the celebration of life a tiny human has brought to a family. I get to experince such a special and rare environemnt, and cuddle lots of babies too.
I’ve selected a few images below which show my journey from the training to one of my recent sessions. Enjoy!
Laura xx
