Oh Jacob... what can I say about him? He was an absolutely adorable little pickle! He brought his Mummy and Daddy with him for his photo shoot and was ready and raring to go as soon as he arrived. That wasn't to say he was sleepy... oh no, not in the slightest! I don't mind if babies are awake, I figure they'll go to sleep eventually and I've only been proven wrong once thankfully! We started the session whilst Jacob was checking out his surroundings and before we knew it, he had started to doze off - woohoo! It was going so well, we made sure we kept his little tummy full so that he would be content and stay sleepy long enough to get the one pose Mummy specifically requested. We got a few lovely pictures on the white blanket before I prepared everything. Jacob was deep in thought, deciding whether he would let me do what I'd planned... We got him onto his tummy, and even got a couple in this pose so that I could composite Daddy's rugby ball in! I was quietly confident that we would get the next pose, everything was in position and Jacob was fast asleep - excellent! The 'Froggy' pose, as it's best known, MUST be shot as a composite - newborn babies cannot hold their own heads, their wrists are very delicate, the position of the neck must be just so. This pose is not easy and ideally baby needs to be very sleepy. I had Mummy help me by holding Jacob's head while I held his arms. We remove 'head hands' first for a shot, then put them back on and remove 'arm hands' for the second. The photo is made up of at least two pictures, and we remove any hands supporting baby in Photoshop afterwards (so, yes, I do Photoshop babies - gasp! I get asked this a lot!). It's my nemesis pose, I just find it so hard to shoot without waking the babies up! Anyway... Jacob was conked, the white noise was playing... we were ready! Here's a SOOC (straight out of camera) shot (changed to black and white just because!) of us nailing the first picture. Jacob barely stirred and was quite happy and comfy... until we swapped our hands over and it all went to pot! Jacob was awake, and knew exactly what it was we were trying to do.. and was having none of it! I wasn't overly concerned that he was awake; after all I only needed a picture of his arms! But no, Jacob knew what we were up to and refused point blank to let us finish the pose (sorry Mummy!) We even tried at the end of the shoot in the hopes he'd forgotten... memory like an Elephant this one! So this is the only picture I got, and as fantastic as my Photoshopping skills are... they cannot create arms and elbows from nothing. Now that he was awake, we decided to move on to parent portraits before we brought in Jacob's big sisters. I wanted to experiment a little with these and before we'd got the more traditional portraits, I did this. Look at those little tootsies! This kind of family picture is fab for parents who aren't overly keen on being photographed, because it still gives your baby a photo of you to look back on when they're all grown up - and it's timeless! This photo works beautifully on an Orb too - and would really give your home the 'wow' factor. We paused the photo shoot at this point, as it was school run time - eek! This meant that when everyone came back, it was sibling and family portrait time to finish the session. Jacob's big sisters were still only little so I try to work fast (and have bribes ready!) before they get bored and lose interest. The sibling pictures are all thanks to a tiny packet of Skittles (Daddy's favourite, it turns out!) So there you have it, a whistle stop tour through Jacob's newborn session!
If you're due soon and haven't booked your newborn session in, we do recommend you book in as soon as you can, as we can't always guarantee that we can fit you in once baby has arrived. If you'd like more information and a price list for newborn sessions, please click here. To book your newborn photo shoot, please click here. I look forward to meeting you soon! Emma Riley's family came along to his cake smash session last month, and what a messy one it was! As usual we started with some family pictures, and pictures of Riley with his older brother and sister - Riley wasn't interested in the slightest, and so I brought out my favourite props in the hopes we could at least keep him on the backdrop long enough to get a couple of snaps! My stool (a favourite among many babies!) worked for the briefest period, before Riley discovered he could climb off it and escape to raid the prop box ;) Up next was Bertie, my little red racing car, and Riley loved it so much he even licked the steering wheel! We managed to get a lovely smile out of him though. I then set up for the cake smash part of the session (my favourite bit!), and then we let Riley loose! I think there's still chocolate cake hidden somewhere in the studio; that stuff went eeeeverywhere! That's all part of the fun though!
Once the cake had been smashed to smithereens, Riley had a quick splash in my tub in between trying to climb out, and that was his session all finished! Riley and his family came back for their viewing last week and these are their favourite images from his session, and I hope you like them too! Happy First Birthday Riley! Emma x Mum & Me Mini Sessions - Why Mums Need To Exist In Photographs - March Family Photographer22/3/2017
I backed up all of my phone pictures last night, and out of around 600 photos, I was in three. Three! You never know what is around the corner and I want to leave my children with photographs of me (actual physical photographs - when was the last time you loaded up a floppy disk, or a CD?) which they can then pass on to grandchildren and so on, keeping memories alive. It's time we existed in photographs! I'm not saying everyone should go out and book a professional photographer - I understand that everyone's budgets stretch in different ways and sometimes it's just not possible. But we should get in more photographs with our children, if you don't have anyone to take a picture - take a selfie! In our house, it's always me taking photographs (of course haha!) and I've taken hundreds of the kids and their daddy, but men often don't think to take pictures of us with the children - and they're not completely to blame; how many of us mums cringe when someone tries to take a photograph of us? Maybe we feel too big, too skinny, too wobbly, hair is too messy, no makeup... it really doesn't matter, our children won't care that we hadn't washed our hair for two days before the picture was taken (thank goodness for dry shampoo!). We need to be more proactive in being included in photographs. With this in mind, I launched my Mum & Me mini sessions. Mini sessions are exactly what they say on the tin, smaller versions of my standard sessions, but with the added value of products included in the session price. For more information on those, and to book, please visit my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/littlecherubsphotography
So, this post went in a totally different direction to what I'd initially planned! But the main point is this - we need to be in more photos with our children, end of. Whether it be phone pictures taken by daddy, selfies, or with a professional photographer, we need to #ExistInPhotographs Contact me today to book your session Emma xx |
AuthorThe ramblings of Emma, Little Cherubs photographer in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire Archives
August 2018
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