Baby Eden slept like a champ throughout her in studio newborn session. I love getting to take my time capturing many different poses and setups, and it’s not always the case that I can! The pinks and purples are so girly and dreamy, swoooooon.

Such sweet little boy and wonderful family. I had the pleasure of capturing his birth, returning about a week later to capture pictures of him at home with his mom and dad.

Last year I was able to capture the peaceful home water birth of this sweet little boy. His mama is a doula herself as well as childbirth educator and co-founder of BabyLove. Along with midwife Aly Folin and her team from North Star Midwifery, this baby was greeted by dad,big-sister, grandma, an aunt and friends.

Things I loved about this birth:

• The look of peace on mom’s face as she labored in the tub
• Dad supporting mom in labor – even getting in the birth tub himself
• Pictures of the baby being born into the water and emerging from water into his mom’s arms
• Mom’s face after the birth
• The delight on big sister’s face when his saw her brother

Thank you to Brittany and her family for inviting me to share in such a special day!

In the previous post I mentioned how Fresh48 sessions are great for those who choose not to have their birth photographed. They are also wonderful for families whose birth I have captured.

Baby Ansel was born in the wee hours of the morning. Twelve hours after leaving the hospital I returned to capture Ansel’s big sisters meeting him for the first time and the first moments of this new, larger family. Like the previous post, you can see how these sessions are different than your typical newborn session. There isn’t a lot of posing, rather I am capturing the candid moments of an event that will never be repeated for this family.

Fresh48 sessions are a newer session offering for me. It is great for people who would prefer not to have a photographer at their birth but would like “fresh” pictures of their baby – fresher than newborn pictures. Unlike your traditional hospital pictures, Fresh48 sessions are completely relaxed and for the most part, un-posed. The aim is to capture & preserve memories of your family as they are, welcoming this new addition.

Fresh48 sessions take place wherever you give birth. In this case, Amaya was born at home. When I received the call that she arrived, I made plans to go to meet her the next morning. When I got to the house, I met dad and the energetic new big brother with the best hair. Yes – I had major hair envy when I saw him!  You can see why:

With pleasure I got to work with baby Cameron and his parents in their home. As you can see he was a super sleeper for me. He even gave me the biggest smile. Welcome sweet one!

Julianna’s mom wrote last week to schedule her daughter’s one year pictures. ONE YEAR?!?!? She’s one already???? How did that happen? Seeing as I hadn’t yet blogged her newborn session, I decided I had better get on that!

Her mom and I have talked about this – so I am not sharing anything she doesn’t know – but Julianna was one of my more challenging newborns of 2012. We sailed through the “lifestyle” photos in the beginning without issue. However once it was time for her to fall asleep and let me pose her, that’s when difficulty started.

It took a couple of hours and me coming back the next day for us to realize that I was only going to get one pose out of Julianna per nursing. So it went a little like this – mom nursed her to sleep, we would get her on the beanbag, bowl, etc in a pose, I would snap the picture, I would try to move her to the next pose, she would wake and cry. Repeat.

Despite the difficulties, the pictures from the session were beautiful. I couldn’t be happier to have worked with such a lovely family. And I am happy to say that mom reports that Julianna is a much happier babe.

Baby William’s mom was so sweet in writing me at 39 weeks wanting a maternity session. She joked it was a nesting thing! Sadly I was about to board a plane to go to a workshop to sharpen my skills in newborn posing/photography followed by a family vacation. By the time I got back, this little one was almost two weeks old, so I had the pleasure of taking his newborn photos.

I still remember the morning. It was cold and slick from a snowfall. I questioned why it was that I do on location newborn shoots as I lugged all my gear up the steps to their home. Being in the city, in St. Paul, the plows hadn’t quite been through to clear everything away.

However once inside I was reminded why I do what I do. Baby William was all snuggled up with his mom. It was nice and toasty in the house – perfect for a newborn shoot. Grandma was there too loving on her new grandson. Having just returned from my workshop, I got to use my new skills. I simply love the results!

I had the pleasure of working with Baby Galen and his parents a couple weeks ago. This session was special in that the parents wanted some skin to skin pictures with baby. Often, especially with birth photography, I am attempting to avoid showing nudity. However this session it could be embraced. I love the closeness and beauty of what we were able to capture.

Just a quick post today. I really love to visit with birth clients sometime after the birth. I love seeing how much baby has grown and being able to touch base about the birth. I got to do this the other day with baby Marcel, who is almost 6 weeks old already, and his parents. One thing that is nice about taking pictures of a baby who is a little older is that they are smiling. Love this one I caught of Marcel giving his mama a big one!