Sweet, sweet Ryleigh. Newborn studio photography is always so fun, but it comes with its surprises. Ryleigh’s newborn session was living proof of this. She was sleepy and smiley throughout the session, making for gorgeous shots, like the one below.
But Ryleigh also had a not-so-pleasant surprise in store for us, which just highlighted why it is always important to schedule enough time for newborn photography appointments!
Newborn Studio Photography For Ryleigh & Her Family
Ryleigh’s family was lovely. They were so down-to-earth and easy to work with, and little Ryleigh was just a stunning newborn to photograph. Mom (Kaylan) and Dad (Shawn) asked for a purple and silver photo theme, so we spent some time playing with textures to bring out Ryleigh’s soft baby skin and sleepy eyes throughout the session.
Purple is a beautiful color for photographing newborns (and, personally, some of my favorite studio props are purple/lavender). It’s gender-neutral, non-traditional, and brings a sense of serenity to photos. It goes well with many of the non-purple props in my studio, including the beloved tiny teddy bear.
It also just really works well for a variety of textures and themes. Fall is here, and the deep purples and yellows in this fall flower bouquet pictured above brought a unique autumn touch to baby Ryleigh’s purple portraits. She looks like she grew out of the flowers and is waiting to wake up to greet the world.
Sleepy Silver Smiles
Rather than doing purple and silver in each of the newborn photos, I chose to do some with a purple theme and some with a silver theme to emphasize texture over color contrast.
This also allowed me to take stunning black and white portraits of Ryleigh, which I might not have been able to achieve with too much contrasting color in the photos.
Less is often more in photography. In the posts above, I only included two marginally distinct shades of purple. They provided some eye-catching details to the photo without taking away from the true subject of the photo — Little Miss Ryleigh.
I applied the same photography tactics when shooting Ryleigh’s photos in silver. I focused on shooting in a consistent silver color with only a slight color variation. That allows the viewer to focus first on sweet Ryleigh, then the color, then the texture. Believe it or not, everything in a photo fits into a formula aimed at emphasizing the subject.
One of my favorite examples of this in Ryleigh’s photos is the photo collage above: I used the white heart bowl as an in-portrait frame to showcase her. It worked well because she looks about as cute as can be in these photos.
Family Time Surprise!
I wanted to get in some photos with Kaylan and Shawn because the family was so fun to work with. It’s also evident from these photos that they adore their newest family member, which adds to the sentiment of the photos.
And from the smile on Ryleigh’s face, she loves her family, too! It’s not too often that I get such a smiley baby in for a newborn session, but their joy is infectious when I do! Just look at that precious smile. She even manages to smile in her sleep while her dad is holding on to her.
Of course, Shawn is also smiling in these pictures. And he would continue to smile, even through a little disaster that happened during Ryleigh’s session.
As you can see in the picture above, neither Ryleigh nor Shawn are wearing a top, and there’s a reason for that. Despite being an excellent sleeper and highly photogenic, little Ryleigh had a massive blowout… all over her dad.
Oh, the joys of parenthood.
Blowouts are a rite of passage, and they’re one of the many small reasons why I never cram too many newborn photography sessions into a day. Newborns are unpredictable, and sometimes (messy) accidents happen.
Poopy diapers or not, Kaylan and Shawn are clearly devoted to Ryleigh, and it’s easy to see why.
Thanks to Kaylan and Shawn for sharing their little one with me and my studio. To schedule your own newborn studio photography session, click here.
