For those that have never tried to photograph a newborn, it’s not as easy as one would think. Snapshots are great because you’re usually home and can’t sleep, but the baby is sleeping. You take a few shots and you’re happy. Well the issue arises when you actually schedule a portrait session for the little one and they decide they don’t want to sleep. Don’t get me wrong, babies are adorable whether they are asleep or awake, but when they are a wake, they tend to move more. This happened to be the case on my last newborn session. He is about 4 wks old and very aware of his surroundings.
When I arrived at my client’s home, the baby had just gone to sleep. I thought “hurray!” So I set up for the session and when it was time to get him undressed and ready…he woke up. Sometimes after babies wake up from a very short nap, they tend to go back to sleep. Not in this case. He was fussy, so they fed him. After a short period of time, he went back to sleep, but evidently not a deep enough sleep. To make a long story short, he would continue going back to sleep and waking up, but never sleeping long enough to allow me to photograph him asleep; therefore all pictures were taken while he was awake and sometimes squirming.
I really enjoyed the session, but I had all of these great ideas I wanted to do with him, but couldn’t. Am I a little disappointed? Yes, but it’s not about me. The parents seemed to love the images I created and that’s what really matters. I’ll get over it and try again. There’s another newborn session coming up on Wednesday, so I’ll see how that goes.
