Jan 16, 2015

Kansas City Baby Photography | Parker | Anna Marie Photography

Kansas City Baby Photography| Anna Marie Photography

Most people look at my newborn sessions and assume that they are difficult sessions to shoot. However, there are always some who say insane things like, “Newborns are probably easy since they sleep all the time.” Um, have you ever met a baby? Yeah, they sleep all the time. If you don’t move them!

If you were taking a nap and somebody picked you up and moved you like fifty times you would probably wake up. And because you can speak you would tell that person to put you down, you are obviously sleeping. News flash: babies can’t talk. What they can do is cry. And when they are annoyed, irritated, hungry or most ironically in my opinion, sleepy…they cry. So no newborn sessions are not easy. No, all my little clients don’t sleep through the entire session. I never expect them to. Am I super grateful when it happens…YES! It is my job to produce images that lead people to believe that my job is not work. Truthfully, I don’t anyone thinking about me when they see my images or look at photos of their baby. I only want them to appreciate the subject.

Okay, so now we have established that the newborn session is most difficult to capture. What would be next?

Hands down, the four month session.

Babies at this age do not sleep during the session and they have opinions…sometimes loud one. They cannot sit up unassisted so that rules out a lot of the fun props. Some babies can do tummy time like a rockstar, but some (like all of my babies) struggle with it. This leads to frustration and more loud opinions. So this is the session you improvise as you go and do what you have to do to get it done. Bonus, if you can make it look easy.

So I have made it sound awful. It’s not, it’s just work. You pay me to work and I expect to do work. A lot of parents skip the four month session. And you shouldn’t skip the four month session, here’s why.

Your baby is going to look at the camera. Those big eyes are going to sparkle like they never will in a cell phone pic. You want to capture that forever. Your baby is going to smile. We are going to get meaningful smiles from your baby that never happened in the newborn session. Will we have to do crazy things to get them, yes, of course. But remember, like I said…it’s work. And it’s completely worth it.

Thursday I photographed Parker who I hadn’t seen since his newborn session. He has only gotten cuter. Seriously, cute. And as a bonus, I got to catch up with his sweet momma Traci. She is also a photographer. So as you can imagine we looked like fools trying to get smiles out of this little one. We got the job done. The four month milestone is captured forever. One hour out of one day and you have these images of your baby forever. Yes, it’s a little bit of work. Maybe an inconvenience to pack everything up and get out in the cold January day to get it done. Maybe you break a sweat during the three outfit changes but it’s only 60 minutes to have something forever. Before you know it your baby will be sitting up, crawling, taking those first steps. Every milestone is important. Don’t miss any of them.

Take a second and leave Parker some love in the comments below!