Your place or Mine? Why Choose a Newborn Photo Studio
This is a questions I sometimes get asked. Sometimes people looking for traditional posed newborn photos want to know if I travel to client’s homes or just offer sessions at my photo studio. The short answer is that I only offer sessions at my studio. To give a better idea why I recommend this, we can go through this recent session together.
This little lady came for her session with her parents for Collection B. I normally give parents simple prep instructions for before the session that help us maximize the chances of having a sleepy and well-fed baby when they get to the studio. Once they arrive, I already have everything set up based on the questionnaire I send out while booking. The studio is at the perfect temperature of 85° and everything ready to go. For a home session, most of this prep has to be done by the parents before the photographer gets to them (heating up the room and making sure there is a big enough area without furniture to be able to set up).
Now lets move on to starting the session…I give parents a run through of how the session flow will be, and always include a disclaimer that I always follow the baby’s lead and we can switch up the plan if needed. This flexibility is also key for having a session at a studio. I normally start the session with posed shots on the posing beanbag. For this, the baby already comes asleep from being kept awake and fully fed before leaving home. BUT! like I mentioned before this is where FLEXIBILITY and taking the baby’s lead comes into play. For this session little Miss was totally awake as soon as I took her out of the car seat, making it hard to achieve posed shots. At the moment, I can improvise and plan for awake shots on a different set up and get some adorable awake shots (which are parent favorites anyway!) and in turn this usually tires out the baby.
Look at all these facial expressions we got (and these are just a few!).
Once we got some awake shots, I could tell she was starting to get tired (usually by a bit of fussing), and decided to move to one of the wrapped shots we had planned. This usually does the trick to get the to sleep…and she did! We got through this set up and I decided to move quickly to the next planned prop shot which included a bucket.
I like transitioning to the bucket shot right after a wrapped prop because I only unwrap the upper part of the body to let the arms out. Kind of like peeling layers from an onion! Keeping the bottom part of the body still wrapped helps in still giving them that secured feeling and minimizing the amount of limbs to control. Here she was starting to wake up a bit again, but I was able to move quickly and get a few miracle shots!
Right after the bucket prop, since she was waking up again, we moved on to the family/parents portion. I normally leave this section for the end (when it doesn’t include siblings), but since she was a bit awake, I wrapped her to help her get back to sleep (some babies just love to be swaddled!). Here you can see how she was a bit awake, and in the process fell asleep. Once we were done with the family shots and she seemed to be back asleep, we attempted again for the posed shots at the beanbag. Everything is still set up as I am able to have multiple areas ready to go. This is sometimes not possible at an at home shoot because depending on the space you have, the photographer is not able to leave multiple set ups ready at a time. Setting up and taking down multiple set ups takes time and makes it hard to move the session along smoothly.
Once I started the posed shots on the beanbag, little Miss woke up again. Some babies are very sensitive to touch and movement no matter what we do or how we plan ahead. Once I realized that posed shots were just not happening (it happens sometimes!), I went back to wrapping her. Again, flexibility and having a studio full of props comes in handy! Mom picked this pink basket set up and we were able to get some extra beautiful wrapped baby images. A lot of this on the go spontaneous planning is just not able to be achieved at a home session. There is so much a photographer can bring and carry with them for a session. If you are already making the investment for quality newborn images, it makes sense to go the extra step to have the session at a studio where you can guarantee success within the normal session time. Another thing to point out with traveling photographers, is that their props and equipment has been traveling to multiple locations, transportation, and dragged all around the city. Having a studio setting also ensures that the items your baby is using are kept in a clean environment!
I hope this answers some or most of your questions as to why choosing a newborn photo studio is the way to go!
If you are looking for a photographer in the NYC area and have any questions feel free to contact me!
Shirly Schvartzman Photography specializes in newborn, and child photography in Brooklyn New York NYC and surrounding areas including but not limited to Brooklyn, NY.
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