Today I spent a few hours as Abigail’s Fraser newborn photographer. She arrived with her parents, and big brother Henry. They called him Hank though and I just love what a power packing name that is on a little kid. It’s so cute to me when little kids have big names. He was a total doll for his portion of photos, it took him a while to warm up. Fortunately, his mom knows the way to his heart, and packed him some marshmallows. By the end of it he was smiling away to earn those snacks!
A new workflow
I’ve been changing up the order of newborn sessions lately. And I’m really liking the new routine. I always started with baby first, especially if they came in asleep. I did table poses first, then props, and then family/parent/sibling photos last.
Lately I’ve been doing a wrapped family photo first. Wrapping first gives me the chance to do a sibling photo with your older child holding the baby if they will. Sometimes they wont and that’s ok, we will incorporate siblings into the bucket photo later. After the wrapped family image, I do a couple wrapped parent photos. Then I do all my prop poses, starting with a wrapped prop, and slowly working my way down to no wrap. After that I wrap up with table posing, and if your baby is still sleeping well and happy I throw a few extra parent shots in with baby unwrapped/undressed.
I have found this to really work great. If siblings are there, they’re part is done early on, in case parents want to send them home with a babysitter. They don’t have to stress about staying clean, or messing up their hair.
I am really liking this new workflow. It feels weird to change my pattern up, I’ve been doing my old workflow for something like 9 years, so it’s different! But it’s giving me the chance to also get a different look for two sets of parent shots in some sessions where babies are still feeling cooperative. I hope this workflow keeps working out great for families. It seems to have knocked nearly 30 minutes, and in some cases 60 minutes off sessions.
Enjoy Abigail’s Fraser newborn session gallery below. What do you think of my new workflow?
