3 Reasons Why I Do Lifestyle Newborn Photography
If you look at my highly styled maternity photography, with designer gowns, perfect golden hour lighting, and women done up in hair and make-up, many would assume that I’d do highly styled newborn photography as well. And I do. Just not in the way that many people would assume. Instead of doing the typical highly styled newborn photography, hyper-posed studio photography, I do highly styled lifestyle photography.
I don’t wrap babies tightly into stretchy wraps. I don’t do the “frog pose” with their hands seemingly holding up their head. I don’t put them in a basket. I don’t only take photos when they’re sleeping. Simply said, I don’t utilize tricky poses, a ton of Photoshop, or Ai to create an unrealistic scene. Although I admire and respect other photographer’s use of those tools to create amazing pieces of art, it isn’t what I want my photographs to say.
Instead I want you, as the mom, to look back at these photos see the baby grab the top of the swaddle and remember how they always tried to escape their swaddles. I want you to look at a close-up of your baby’s face and remember the stock kisses between their eyes or the raspberry birthmark on their upper lip. I want you to look at photos in their nursery and remember it just as it was when they were born. I want you to be able to gaze at photos in your living room, see your dog sitting there next to the family, and remember how your first baby, the fur baby, didn’t know what to do when the baby first arrived.
I also want your session to be relaxed. I want it to be filled with love and good memories. Instead of us trying to calm your baby for sleeping photos, I want it filled with snuggles and no worries about how baby behaves.
Lastly, I want you to remember that your baby burst into this life with vigor and energy. They came out with personality. They came out ready to take on the world. So simply put, I do lifestyle photography for three reasons:
Authenticity
Safety and Low Stress
The Art Historian in Me
Now let’s explore my reasonings for devoting myself to lifestyle newborn photography a bit more.
Reason #1 - Authenticity of my Newborn Portraits
In all my photography, I value authenticity. I have design meetings before all my sessions to make sure your session is infused with meaning. We choose a location that speaks to the mom-to-be/couple/family. We choose clothes for mom that make her feel beautiful and exhibit her style. I do poses that highlight the meaning of that chapter, whether it be mom caressing her bump, hugs and love between family members, or showing a couple on the precipice of a vast wilderness to exhibit what it feels like to be embarking on parenthood. Maternity and family sessions with me are about taking a moment out of your very busy lives to spend time together and appreciate this chapter. Why should my newborn sessions be any different?
For me as an artist, authenticity doesn’t equate to highly posed studio newborn portraits. Babies don’t spend their time wrapped far too tightly and in a milk coma stupor. They don’t get put regularly in tiny baskets or doll sized beds.
They spend their time in their parent’s arms. They spend their time breastfeeding. They spend their time hanging out in their bassinets. They are doted on and cared for constantly by their family. Capturing that is to me what it means to capture this chapter in a family’s story.
As a parent, I personally chose lifestyle photography (the style I do) to capture my daughter. And, I’m so happy I did. Because there are now photos that captured the things she herself did at her newborn stage. As someone who is now the parent of a five year old, that is very precious to me.
Reason #2 - Safe and Low Stress Portraits
Besides a lack of hyper-posed newborn sessions in my portfolio, you also won’t find any photos on my website of families posed on a train track or swinging their toddlers by the arms. I refuse to be someone exhibiting possibly unsafe poses, even if I myself can do them safely. It exhibits unrealistic expectations of what a baby can do at that stage.
Many newborn poses can be very dangerous, if they weren’t done correctly. For example, the “frog pose” I mentioned above. It should never be done in a single photo. It must be a composite. And many other newborn poses have a high chance of causing positional asphyxiation, if not done in a very specific way. But an inexperienced photographer or a parent trying to diy photography themselves won’t know that looking at those photos.
To make sure that I’m not part of the possible miseducation of new photographers or parents, I never post photos that could easily be done in an unsafe way, regardless of if I did them safely or not myself when taking the photo.
Even if you put possible safety issues by the unexperienced aside, creating those poses can be stressful. Babies need to be in just the right mood for that to happen. Fortunately for me, lifestyle photography can’t be further from that. I have worked on multiple occasions with fussy babies and babies that are just not up for anything. But that’s fine. With the creativity I can utilize in these sessions, parents can be soothing the baby the whole time in ways that they would be doing if I weren’t there, and we will still get a great set of beautiful photos. We aren’t dependent upon baby being in a good mood in order to get great shots.
Reason #3 - Newborn Photography within the context of the history of photography
The first time I saw a hyper-posed sleeping baby image, the first thought that came to my mind was the corpse portraits that were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. Sleeping and death are closely aligned in our culture. We do, after all, call a stillborn baby a “baby born sleeping.” I want to be clear, I am absolutely in no way against getting photos of stillborn babies. I truly believe that those images are very precious and should be captured. But when I had a baby, I wanted photos that celebrated her health and the fact that she made it to the newborn stage. I wanted to celebrate the starting of her life. That is also a meaning I want to give to my clients.
Last Note on Posed/Studio Newborn Photography
I don’t mean this blog post to bash the hyper-posed newborn photographers out there. What they create is art. All this post is meant to convey is that it is a type of art I do not personally care to create. As an artist, I get to choose the meanings and messages I want to convey in my art and studio newborn photography just doesn’t fill the bill for my own art.
Sara Herkes is a maternity, newborn, family, and senior photographer based in Longmont, CO. She serves the the Denver Metro Area, the Colorado Rockies, and the Northern Front Range and captures your pregnancy amidst the Colorado wilderness. Learn more about her services here.
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