It’s always daunting when a photographer you know and are (online) friends with passes an in home newborn client to you – or any type of client, really. This was the case with Santi and his lifestyle newborn session…my photographer friend had a bout with the C-word that we’re not saying out loud and Santi’s mom, out of an abundance of caution, decided to seek another photographer for Santi’s in home newborn session. That photographer ended up being me and it was an absolute pleasure photographing Santi and his family in their beautiful home.
When we spoke on the phone about their in home session, I talked to Santi’s mom about the importance of an abundance of natural light in order to deliver my light and airy style of photography. We determined that the best places to shoot – and the ones I usually seek out in an in home newborn session anyway – were the master bedroom, the nursery, and the living room.
When I arrived on a partly cloudy day, I was dismayed to see that their master, which had huge, gorgeous windows, was still fairly dark. I didn’t want to give up on the master but I knew that the lighting was not ideal and I didn’t want to sacrifice quality for a location so we snapped some shots of the big brothers with the littlest newbie and we attempted to seek light in an area just off the bedroom…but it just wasn’t clicking for me so we decided to cut our losses and move to the nursery for the next part of the session.
And, to be honest, sometimes this is the case…no matter how much preplanning is done (and, my client’s can tell you, there’s a LOT of preplanning) you can’t account for the weather on the day of the session and making decisions on the fly is one of the reasons you hire a photographer to capture these moments for you.
The decision to move to the nursery ended up being a good idea as the light was much better on the other side of the house. Santi’s room had two big windows so we set up camp in there. We got some breastfeeding images, some shots of dad reading books to the older boys, some shots of the boys roughhousing, and then we tried for some family combos.
In an in home newborn session, I like to get shots of the baby in his crib. An in home newborn session is different from a posed session in basically ALL the ways – but I still like to get solo shots of the babe and the crib is a great place to do that. It shows the tiny size of the baby in comparison to the large crib, there are great leading lines with the crib slats, and it’s an amazing way to get sibling interaction without baby being mauled 🤣 especially if the bigger siblings are still just babies themselves and get lost in exuberance.
In this session, we also got to see the sweetness of a momma and her boys. While moms of boys have to learn to live with dirt and noise and wrestling and weird smells, there is also no love like that a little boy has for his momma – and Rikah’s boys put it on display this day. And you can tell that there was no place that made baby Santi happier than snuggled right up to his mommy. This was one sweet in home newborn photo session.
Liz Viernes Photography is based near Dayton, MD, and specializes in maternity, fresh 48, posed and lifestyle newborns and first year milestone portraits.
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