When scheduling newborn photo sessions, I try to get babies in sometime in their first month. This is a crazy time in mom and baby’s life. However, this is when there is still some wiggle room in schedules, baby is still sleepy and therefore easier to pose, and (of course) when baby is the tiniest! However, this shouldn’t dissuade you from scheduling a newborn photo session later on in baby’s development if you postponed or are having second thoughts about scheduling photos. Emanuel’s non-traditional newborn photos will show you that “older” newborns are just as cute to photograph!
Baby Emanuel’s Non-Traditional Newborn Photos
Remember how I recently posted a bluebonnet maternity photo session featuring a woman named Gabriela? This little guy was behind the scenes in that photoshoot!
Baby Emanuel was born only a few weeks after his momma’s bluebonnet photoshoot, and six weeks later came into the Hello Photography Studio for his own glamor shots. Six weeks isn’t a lot of time in the span of an adult life, but it is enough for significant baby changes.
For instance, we don’t get a lot of open eyes during our traditional newborn photo sessions. However, you can see Emanuel was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for many of these photos!
That’s exactly why we got Emanuel in when we did. Gabriela wasn’t sure she wanted to come back for a newborn session, but when she saw her little guy growing and changing so quickly, she didn’t want to miss a thing, especially his tiny fingers and toes!
Up Close & Personal
So, one thing I really wanted to do with this session was take a series of close-ups of Emanuel’s features, including his fingers and toes.
Close-ups are, themselves, a sort of non-traditional newborn photo type I enjoy experimenting with.
I don’t often include them in my newborn photos. However, it seemed really important to for this session. One of the things we associate with babies are tiny hands and feet. In a blink, those little hands and feet turn into kindergartener hands and feet, then middle schooler hands and feet…
They’re precious, intimate moments parents want to remember. Since these photos are so intimate, a black and white setting seemed the most appropriate.
Green With Envy For This Non-Traditional Newborn Photo Set
Not all the photos I took were black and white, though. You’ve already caught a glimpse, but I got a new green background for my newborn photos that I am absolutely obsessed with! Emanuel got to try it out in his photos.
The color is definitely earthy, but also calming. It was the perfect color to capture Emanuel’s dusting of dark hair, and to match with this prop teddy bear he is holding on to.
And that wasn’t the last of the cute props for Emanuel’s session. Though I wanted to get a bunch of photos on this background, there was more work to be done!
Making Non-Traditional Newborn Photos Whimsical!
Gabriela’s bluebonnet session was so whimsical, I would have been remiss to have let Emanuel out of a touch of whimsy in his session!
I’ve got several mini teddy bear props, so Emanuel wasn’t tied to just one. The white teddy bear in the photo above provides just enough contrast to give the photo a pop of “color”.
Emanuel was doing his best “three little bears” impression in this mini wood prop bed. He even met one of the little bears while he was slumbering in this bed, which looked “just right” for him!
And I couldn’t let Emanuel out of the studio without taking a picture in one of my favorite props — the crescent moon bed — and making him look as though he was drifting through a sky filled with stars.
You only get a few weeks of teeny little whimsy with your little one, and I hope I was able to capture that for Gabriela and Emanuel.
Thanks again for visiting us at the Hello Photography Austin studio!
