I was lucky enough to photograph this little dude’s sister when she was born. We had some gorgeous flowers and new blankets to play with for her session and when we FINALLY got her to sleep, the shoot could have gone on for days. (Of course I never did blog about it because I’m terrible, but i’ll totally correct that soon. Promise. Here, look at the maternity shoot from pre-big sis instead.)
This guy though? Total opposite. Things started out so very easily… big sis photo, check. Family, check. Mom, check. Dad, check. Alone, check. And then I said the words you never say during a newborn session. “Wow, this is going so well!”
Yep. From then on, we had an awake, somewhat fussy, and fairly squirmy babe on our hands. We wrapped and unwrapped and fed and changed and re-wrapped and used all of my tricks and when I got home, I commented to my husband that things hadn’t gone quite as planned. I was feeling disappointed in the shoot and disappointed in myself. I was doing that thing that we photographers sometimes do after a session – Imagining all of the poses I didn’t do. Imagining all of the combinations that we didn’t give enough time to. Imagining the details that I’d missed.
So, I worked on other things for a few days. I gave it some time before actually getting into editing the photos, and when I sat down to pick out a sneak peek for Mama, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of times “awwww!” escaped my lips. My perception of the session was completely wrong. The photos are beautiful, Mama will surely cry (because that’s what she does,) and I’m over the moon! You see, it’s not about having a checklist of poses. It’s about treating each session as an opportunity, and if things head in another direction for one reason or another, great! It’s about creating unique and beautiful photos for every client, no matter what the circumstances.
I was so wrapped up in the challenges of the session and planning the next photo, that I didn’t take the time to really appreciate what we were getting. Which was gold.
