Anna Kate at Five Weeks

Awwwww, don’t you just wanna eat her up!  You don’t even have to like veggies, she is so scrumptiously cute!

Anna Kate is the baby niece of my next bride I’m getting ready to post here.  After shooting their engagement session, Abby had her sister contact me for her newborn baby photos and I was honored to oblige.  Anna Kate is just five weeks old here and really was quite a trooper for all the fuss and bother of her first session!

And she didn’t mind at all being in this lil’ knitted coccoon I got off of Etsy from seller joliem6201.  I originally bought two matching cocoons (green seen here, and orange)  for my twins session in January however, since Jolie was making them as a custom order, I didn’t allow enough time to use them for their first session.  And when I received them and saw the size, I knew that the twins would have to grow a bit to not get lost in them!

I love that I’ve adapted now to shooting in my clients’ homes.  It makes their photo session so much better on several levels.  First of all, you don’t have to do all the work of packing and driving your child to a studio and HOPE they will be ok when they get there.  No, just relax and I bring the studio to you. Your baby doesn’t even have to be awake when I get there – I walk around shooting the nursery and all the cute personal artifacts of babydom.  Here I grabbed a shot from Anna Kate’s perspective of her crib mobile.

So while I’m unpacking, setting up and checking out different areas of light in your home, you can be waking and feeding your baby at your leisure.  That actually provides another nice photo opt, too:  the shoulder burp.

Another nice advantage of your baby session at home is that I can incorporate your baby’s personal affects, their nursery, toys and even include different areas of the home – your baby’s first home – they might grow up and forget if you move later on.

Of course, I always encourage having an item that’s been embrodiered with their name – instant identity shot!

Even though your baby might fuss a bit here and there, I allow plenty of time for feedings and changings – that’s the norm!  They dictate to me when and how long we will shoot together.  Often, it just takes a few minutes of playing with mom or dad and we get and angelic look like this.

So many changes so fast – they don’t stay this small for long!  It’s a good idea to schedule your first session as soon as you can and then set up appointments for periodic sessions throughout the first year.  My recommendation is newborn, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and one year.  The changes between each session are amazing and the development of a tiny child is one of my favorite pleasures to document!

To see more of Anna Kate’s session click here!