capturing the first days of a new life
The first few days and weeks after a baby is born can be a heady, dreamlike experience for their parents, combining euphoria with sleep deprivation! This is a very important time of life to record with professional photos, as your baby is changing daily.
When we’re planning a newborn shoot we are asked a number of questions that quite regularly:
We often get asked about the right time to get the photos – should it be a few days after baby is born, or a few weeks? The way I look at this is that it’s never really too early, but there are some practical considerations. Ideally it’s great if you can bring baby in when only a few days old. Against this is the likelihood that you’ll be pretty exhausted, and might not feel ready to venture. Also, if you’re travelling a long way, this can be a challenge with a newborn. In practice, we see our families brining in their bubs for newborn shots anywhere from six or seven days-old, onwards.
We get asked if it’s too late to have newborn shots, too. Never! Exactly when it stops being a newborn shoot, and becomes a baby shoot or a toddler shoot is really just semantics. The important thing is to remember that young lives change quickly, and every snippet of time is unique. As the saying goes: “The best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago, the next best time is now.” (Although if you’re baby was born 50 years ago, we might call it a family shoot, instead!).
Finally, parents worry about whether their newborn will be doing the right thing at the scheduled shoot time. What if they need a nappy change or a breastfeed? Short answer: Don’t worry.
Firstly, we always allow about an extra half-hour for our newborn and baby shoots, in case baby needs a feed or nappy change. Secondly, newborns usually have a fairly regular three or four hour cycle of sleeping, playing and feeding, and your shoot can potentially take advantage of one or all of these parts of the cycle – baby will be cute almost regardless of what she’s doing! Our newborn photographers have even taken beautiful photographs of newborns being fed – either from bottle or breast – this is a moment of unparalleled intimacy and can lead to incredible images. Likewise, there are few things more wonderful than a sleeping newborn, as any new parent can attest!
An important decision for parents to make is whether they wish to have skin shots – photographs where one or both parents appear to be fully or partly topless, so that there is direct skin contact with baby. At Cooper Studio we really love the intimacy of shots like these, but also understand that not everyone will want them. We’ll discuss this with you before the shoot and respect your wishes, of course.
Finally, our Fremantle studio is equipped for comfort, including air conditioning, private areas, real coffee and the option to look at your photos straight away, so that only one trip is needed. The temperature of the studio can even be adjusted up or down to make baby more comfortable.
