Newborn Lifestyle Photography on location in Johannesburg

Tiny baby Lilly kept her new parents and I very busy during her newborn photoshoot.  I like to prep before a shoot with some ideas for poses to try that more often than not don’t end up looking like their Pinterest equivalent.  Getting new babies and dogs to pose is a little like herding cats, but sometimes it all comes together. It took several attempts to get Lilly to lie on the suitcase (photo above) and not wriggle, although the threat of pees and poops was never far from our minds as she was full of milk.

Lilly has two doggy siblings (you can check out their maternity shoot here) who added to the fun by hopping onto the bed and sleeping on the photoshoot blankets (it’s really fine because they are washed in between shoots) and making every attempt possible to lick their tiny human. Whilst I always include some posed shots in my newborn photo shoots, I also like to capture moments as they unfold, like this one.

You’ll have gathered by now that I love dogs and more often than not, they feature in my newborn photo shoots.  This pair of trouble makers are their mom and dad’s first born babies, so getting some family pics with them was a must, what actually happened was that the dogs took over and made sure this shot was all about them.

Also this shot.

And this one.

Once the dogs were bored of following instructions and baby Lilly was sufficiently milk drunk, we could concentrate on family portraits and newborn photographs.

New babies generally don’t stayed chilled for the duration of a newborn shoot. It’s a disruption to their routine, there’s undressing and nappy changes and it’s all a bit strange for them I imagine. So sometimes they need to be held and cuddled which also makes for cute pictures.

From my years of working with tiny humans, I’ve discovered that they are happiest when they are warm, dealt with patiently and everyone (me included) is calm and relaxed. They pick up on the energy and atmosphere in their environment which is something I like to be aware of so that a shoot isn’t an experience that leaves new parents feeling guilty.

Handing a niggly baby to Dad can often solve the problem. We had to do a few handoffs before we got a calm shot with mommy.

When she eventually dropped off to sleep (for a few minutes) we got some lovely portraits.

Until Lilly woke up again to check out what was going on.

I prefer to wrap a shoot up before we end up with an over tired newborn baby, so after this set of pics, I left Lilly to be snuggled up and put down for a nap.

Just because I can , I’ll finish with this shot of the hounds.