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Shoot: Parent Pose with Newborn Part 1

Lesson 8 from: Family Photography: Capturing Connection

Julia Kelleher

Shoot: Parent Pose with Newborn Part 1

Lesson 8 from: Family Photography: Capturing Connection

Julia Kelleher

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Lesson Info

8. Shoot: Parent Pose with Newborn Part 1

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

Introduction

16:55
2

Psychology of Parenthood

20:59
3

The Power of a Story

14:45
4

Composition and Color

27:50
5

Psychology of New Parent and Connecting

28:26
6

Pre-Session Questionnaire

33:31
7

Posing Basics for Connection

20:40

Lesson Info

Shoot: Parent Pose with Newborn Part 1

I'm gonna start shooting were going to some technical stuff and then we're also going to get into connecting with rachel on caleb we're here caleb is about to be seven days old I think he's our youngest baby I'm not sure, but I think he's our youngest baby here and then we also have lauren and charlotte here and lauren is charlotte excuse me is almost a month old I believe so she's a little bit of an older baby, which I know a lot of people are always asking me about they want to know how do we should we turn him down? Shall we let those older babies come into the studio or not? So we're going to be looking at poses with one parent with the mothers were start simple and then we'll take it a little bit more and more complex okay on, I'm goingto show you basically go to poses, but you can use everyday in your studio and then we're going to talk about and as you watch me work and listen, I'm sure you'll turn into some of the things I do to create connection. Now what you guys didn't see w...

as that lunch rachel and caleb were saying they're having lunch and I did have a little conversation with rachel and attempted to connect with her now it's kind of just a natural thing anyway I she's just she's really pretty she's super tall, and I think caleb is almost ten pounds. We have a big, big little baby boy coming in and, you know, of course it's hard to not pay attention to the adorable little newborn sitting in the cafeteria, so I went over and said hello. She told me a little bit about him, and we connected a little bit on that level. And I also where I want you to understand with this is that I don't have the luxury of being able to connect with her on the same level that I normally would with a client. This is normally a process that happens over the course of a couple weeks, or at least a few days before the session. Okay, so I talked to them on the phone, connect with them a little bit there, send them the questionnaire, they fill that out, get a little bit involved with the process, and then when they come into the studio, we start to connect a little bit more. So all that front and stuff I didn't get to do with rachel because I had the luxury of creative live finding on me all these models, which is fantastic, but it does put a little dent in the connection process, and I want you to understand that. Because sometimes she's super nice and very open and you know she has no issue being vulnerable and she of course was listening to class so I think she kind of knows what's going on here but that's quite all right so but I want to put that caviar out there so but at least you'll be able to see how I connect with her as we're working to try to help her forget that the camera is there okay now the one thing that I really want to stress is don't overshoot once you've got it let alone there's no sense in going on with yes when you're a beginner that's totally what you do is use you take extra photos just in case you got you got a good one I know any another good one but don't let that hinder your flow and if your sessions I'm sorry but I am not an advocate of the three to four hour newborn session that's ridiculous in my mind it should not take that long and if you have that kind of time great go for it. I used to do the same thing when I was starting out I would take forming my longest newborn session is seven hours record okay? It was ridiculous I mean I should have spent that long doing it, but I was starting out that baby I didn't understand you know what I'm saying is sometimes you need to do that in order to learn and grow and figure it all out now people who really go for perfect details every single time I may have to take that long and if that's your modeling your style that's totally fine there's nothing wrong with that as most of you know I am a businesswoman and I am about efficiency time but also art in connection so it's a balance for me I'm not going to let a session go for hours on end just to get everything absolutely perfect when I know I can get great amazing connection my client's gonna love it it's beautiful images he's going to a good sale and I'm pleased with it so it all has to do with your own sense of what you feel is valuable and how you want to make your money but I'm a huge advocate of efficiency systems you know doing the art but also doing it making money you know don't kill yourself and never make don't be the tortured poor artist okay so anyway okay so the first thing we're gonna do is lauren's gonna come help me on introduce lauren to you guys this is lauren diskin lauren is my new assistant and she's pretty awesome sauce she came on board after tiffany left in june and she comes from a journalism background herself she is not did not know much about newborns when she came to see me. Okay. Uh, she is also a dancer. So she teaches dance instructions to little kids. So she had some kid experience. Okay, but her specialty she's a journalist and a pr in development director for a wonderful organization called saving grace in bend, which is to aid in domestic violence for women. So she has a really neat career. That's an advocate for women and children as well. So one of the reasons I was drawn to her, but she was basically trained. Teo, work with babies in newborns. Okay, so one of the first things I want to talk to you a little bit about technical. It looks like rachel and caleb are ready over there. Is he asleep? Rachel, see, working on it. I thought I heard hiccups over there. You see, I got the hiccups. I thought I heard a couple hiccups over there. I usually wait for hiccups to go away because they can keep the baby awake. Not always, but sometimes, um and if he did, he burn pretty good. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. I mean, I like to know that the bird got out. He fed and burped because oftentimes if they don't verb um they'll get gas and stuff during the session that will start a little fussy once they feel that gas moving through so it is important to try to get a burp out of them before you start shooting. Okay, so one of the first things we do is we're gonna white balance hey, I do not use all the white balance. I use a custom white balance and I think that's super important because auto changes the color with every shot you take. Okay in granted, it's not such an issue in studio when you're using really consistent lighting, but like when you're outside using auto white balance, every image is going to be where every serious image this is going to be different was faras color temperature goes because the camera tried to read the light every single time that takes the shot whereas if you do a custom white balance or you do it on calvin it's going to stay the same no matter what and all your images will be consistent so even if you got it, maybe a little bit wrong you can quickly correct everything with one fell swoop in light rumor bridge okay, so I do what's called a custom white balance, okay, I wanted to read the light and expose for greg, okay and use that so my equipment basically is I have to cameras that I used I've actually just purchased the d seven fifty nine, twenty seven fifty and I'm actually really in love with it it's a cool camera this is my work horse this is the d eight hundred on dh I like this camera but I have to admit I don't I feel like it's and it might be my camera needing some work has been around the block a few times but I think it has tends to be a little soft sometimes like I'll get an image or two that's not quite tech sharp and it is a little irritating so and the other thing this camera has incredibly large files incredibly large of thirty six million pickle makes megapixel camera so the files that come out of here are ridiculous sometimes now fantastic for compositing I can take a little detail out of an image and blow it up and have all kinds of fun with this when I composite but lately I've been shooting with the g seven fifty and studio because it's been a little sharper its a little lighter I'm big into light cameras I don't like to have a lot a lens and a body that's about all I used I'm using the nikon eighty five millimeter one point four g lens this is now my favorite lens it is deliciousness okay and this is what I use for family portrait I will occasionally use it on being back on ly if I have an assistant with me because I have to back off from the bean bag a little bit to be able to get the image with the boca out of this is absolutely fantastic at one point four incredible usually shooting around one make six not at them so to do this on a nikon you basically set yourself to the custom white balance feature which it's not on the moment there we go it's a pre setting so on your screen you'll see you'll adjust your white palace to be in the pre setting and then to take a reading you first have to get your exposure correct uh a little short on my tether here we go so I always exposed for the grey and obviously when you use continuous lighting what you see is pretty much what you get in frame so it's nice because you don't have to deal with strobes you don't have to do with firing the strobes on dh literally what you guys hear me look at that beautiful light on lauren it's what I see is what I get and I don't have to worry about strokes going off in children's faces and it's an advantage to me there can be a different it's a disadvantage with children moving quickly a stroke is going to capture them much sharper so sometimes with a fast moving toddler continuous lining can be a little bit shaky shady whatever you wanna call it so I'm gonna simply explosive for that grade take a shot make sure I got my suppose you're right using my history ram and I don't think I'm going to see this when you are tethered to the creative life system you can't ship you can't see what's on the back, so I need to just be able to see my there we go and can I see my history? Um if that's all right, so I can tell if I've blown my whites or not. All I'm trying to do is is look at my history, ma'am, and see, did I get the grey in the middle of the history, ma'am? And I'm I'm not hitting the table in my white, so I don't want to over exposed my whites or under exposed my black yes, what that is this is a photo vision this is from photo vision it's their target okay, get the big one because you need to fill the frame with grave were going white balance it looks good, it's pretty good I didn't I'm a little hot but that's all right, okay, I'll tone it down just a little bit, so I just use my history and to make sure that I've got a decent exposure, obviously I'm spot metering in here and I'm measuring off three in the middle to make sure I have a proper exposure and that's the nice thing about using continuous light is you can use the meters in your camera to measure the light okay, which is a really nice thing so then what I do to get a white balances I just hold my white balance buttoned down until the priest sign starts blinking in here and then I just fill my entire frame with gray and it will tell me good I'm white balanced that's it it has now measured color temperature perfectly for the lighting situation I have set up okay and in cannon you could do the same thing okay, you set it to custom white balance well, first take a picture of the gray or the or you can either do white or gray with cannon take a picture of it. Fill it with your frame. Okay, make sure exposure's right first okay then take a full picture of white or gray and then go to the custom white balance setting and I'll ask you if you want to use the last image to set your white balance say yes right that's how easy this and it saves you a boatload of time in postproduction okay okay I am good honey, thank you very much so now I'm set to go and with studio lighting the beauty and this set up is that unless I start moving stuff around I'm set you don't have to do much more than that. I just have to focus on connecting with my clients posing, getting the image to look the way I want in the frame okay all right, so we're gonna start off with rachel and caleb over there you guys want to come on over now as faras lighting goes I am it's all in the resource is but I'm using to westcott tv six lights get some hand sanitizer I might have its habit sorry turn it back on I try to save the battery as much as possible total habit sorry about that. Um this is our religion in the studio it's the hospital grade hand sanitizer made by three a m it's called abbey gardy it's about thirteen bucks a bottle you can order online and I just ordered like three or four bottles at a time. It lasts a few months in the studio with this stuff great because it doesn't dry out your hand you know how some of them are alcohol? I mean, they're all alcohol based but it really does test shot. Yeah, here I'll take it out really quick um it really does keep your hands from getting all alcohols right out I put a little too you got a lot on e I tell my son just wait, okay okay, my dear, I'm gonna go ahead and how's he doing sleeping like a little baby, okay? With grab a blanket like a little receiving blanket or something. I also keep a bunch of receiving cancer always keeping it real around here. I also keep a bunch of receiving blankets around mom and, um, mom usually only brings one, and I don't want her to get soiled, so I'm gonna go ahead and take him from her. And if you'll notice, the transition is one where I try to keep him tucked in. Okay, and I keep him on his side. Okay, we have to get this diaper robin close and we haven't even stripping down yet. Usually he's stripped down by the time I am, I start, but I try to keep everything tucked in swaddled and I keep him on the side position. For those of you who watched the newborn class last time I talked to you about the five s is swaddle swinging, sucking, shushing and stomach her side position. She's like say that again swaddle keeping the arms and legs in side or stomach position swinging, jiggle, jiggle, jiggle. This is what mommy's womb was like when she was running around and he was still in there. Okay, she doesn't needed obviously you found asleep but when they're fussy you can literally go sh a baby's hearing is not quite developed when they're this young and so you could be loud you know, everybody says the vacuum cleaner or the dryer like makes their kid fall asleep that's why it's the sound of blood rushing through mama's through mama's body and sucking is a last resort a passive fire I will even with a clean finger use my pinkie and let them stuck on my finger but be very cognizant of that you want to be very safe about it and make sure that your hands are well sanitized okay, so mama have a seat, my dear I'll let you sit on the make sure we take care of belinda can you take this for her so she doesn't lose it. Thank you. We're gonna have to get him naked. No it's okay, I know you're good you're doing awesome and she's pretty mama is beautiful so let's see is caleb your first baby? This is not your first rodeo so you know what you're doing? I turned a fuss a lot with mama's when I come for see them and I also say things like, I'm gonna be in your bubble a lot so forgive me again mother in law story when she's had a little bit too much to drink trust me crazy so I always weren't people like that I don't like tio tio yeah my space so I just warned I'm like okay I chose to go ahead and leave the shirt that rachel was wearing on because I want to show the variety and images so ah lot of times at the studio like when lauren comes on I'll show you I've wrapped her in fabric so this is her shoulders are bare that skin on skin look but it's also really beautiful to do more of a casual everyday look in some moms I prefer this because they want to send out the images with the birth announcement and that you know modesty is sometimes nights for mom's so be willing to go either direction if that's the case and mama wants to wear something like this just make sure you coach her enough on what to wear that's pleasing I really stay away from short sleeves I think it cuts off the arm occasionally it happens a data ll do it there's something you know about it you just have to go with it. The neckline is beautiful here we should we're showing some skin the color is stunning it's a very soft off off white oatmeal color I tell my moms to try to stay away from pure black and pure white because they tend to compete with the face and our two hot you'll either like they'll melt into the background with the black or the white will distract from the face okay, so let's go ahead and get this little man naked see if he'll do that the first pose that we're going to do is called embrace he might wake up a little bit when we do this but that's okay they tend to complain a lot but when you get cold okay so you just go ahead unwrap she's gonna go and un snap them and I also rachel follow directions beautifully I tell my moms to bring them in an open front garment not something I have to pull over their head and like I said, we usually do this before she feeds we get them naked just in a diaper okay no peanut came here that other she's like you thinking she don't be so gentle you know let's be a little job because I don't want I don't want they always wake up when you when you strip him down and it's a good thing because usually they're they arrive asleep you know they arrive having just slept in the car so I always pull him out. I get him out of the car seat and I undress him getting local wake him up a bit, I'm not hurting them by getting I'm just kind of cooling them down and that tends to wake them up and so they're ready to eat thanks that's that's all I'm trying to do is kind of get him ready tto I'm gonna go slow with him since he was already asleep I'm no I'm gonna wake him up by doing this but do you see how just putting one aside kind of jiggling around and what you will learn to do is read babies when she's done a lot of um you'll start to see that they respond to certain things some babies really like the jiggle action some babies really like the stroking of the head you couldn't grab that diaper off some babies um like the show she sound zirin is probably some action in there I know okay there's a little action going anyway and we keep, um wipes around constantly so mom warehouse to have asked mom for anything okay and what you'll notice is I'm just dancing here make me look like I'm crazy but there is a reason the other thing you can have around is ah white former is really helpful because these cold wipes on their bottom tend to wake him up in a heartbeat okay and notice I'm keeping the arms and legs in at all times nobody needs to see his poop we don't need to send you there buddy okay go ahead and take that diaper out for me sweetie thank you thank you I can't see down there is such a great mom okay, so mama I'm gonna go ahead and tell you exactly what did you you don't have to think, which is really nice. You just have to listen, ok? And when I tell you to make movements, try to make him the smallest possible. If I need more, I'll ask for more. Okay. Every newborn baby pose. We do has three points of contact for safety one too. And your chest is a third lauren's gonna be standing by. You know how they like jerk awake. We don't want him he's not going to fall out of your arms. I've done this a thousand times. He won't. He won't do it, but I'm a little bit anal about this and overly precautious. So I like to have lauren standing by, and I want you to understand the three points of contact. So you understand that he needs to be close to your chest all times. Okay, I'm going to put your hands in position and I'm going to put him in your arms. Don't try to help me, okay? Let me do the work. You're pretty much my prop. You're also the one who loves him. So you need to be you need to be the one there, okay, so just do your best to listen to my voice, let me tell you and we just go from there, okay? Sounds good. So the first pose we're going to start to do is the embrace posts I'm gonna have you put this hand here. She has a lovely long arms. So this should work out was a very popular pose. Longing for photographers know how to do it. Okay on gets a simple kind of go to thing. We must do this it almost every single session. Okay, so his little butt's going to go here this little thought your thumb and fingers are going to control his leg. So we hide his private parts because nobody wants to do that about tv. The internet, this arm. This is the tough one. Okay, this is the one that goes all the way up it around it's gonna cradle his head. These fingers air very important. I wanted to be able to tip his head forward. Should I need it? Because the worst thing the rule is to shoot up a baby's nose. It looks off cool so way want to keep his nose down and in that curly wound like position. Okay. And I know he's nine and a half pounds. Yeah, but you're six feet tall and have gorgeous long arms look and so you can see the image I'm already portraying the circular composition I'm going to go ahead and put her in that right side of the frame in the upper right power point. It's going to create a beautiful story was just a simple post. Okay, he's doing awesome. Now, when I get him out of here, he might get a little cold. Okay, if I ask you to talk to him, just say nice things to him and it might take me a few minutes to get him in position. He's. So cute doing good, bubba. The problem is, is I could just sit and stare at you all day long. I usually sweet boy long. How long is he? Twenty two inches. So I'm keeping the arms and legs in. I'm hanging on to him a little bit, make sure all the cameras can see all the cameras. See, we're good. Ok, he's. Such a cerebral and I just kind of giggle like jell o. Okay, remember what your mom used to make jell o for those of you who are international, you may not know jell o is a big a company nowadays. That gelatin dessert so good as a kid you like love it, sugar? Nothing but sugar, um, when your mom makes it in the bowl and you always want to jiggle it, make it wiggle don't crack magellan that's how hard you jiggle okay and see how happy he is he's like this is awesome I feel good now see how his shoulder is a little bit like that I'm gonna have mom separator arms a bit so we can get him down they're perfect and that just helped his hands not be in such an awkward position and you see me change that okay it's going to make sure his feet don't pop off so let's go ahead and kind of you're okay you're beautiful okay, so he's not perfectly sound asleep that's okay, I'm still gonna shoot it they're gonna wait until he's out I'm going to go for it. Okay? So mama, you just kind of they always morally flexing he's kind of in and out of rooms sleep right now so just go ahead and giggling like that and he's a big baby and he's long so he's not gonna be able to like totally curl up like some of the little ones can so you have to be forgiving with the post connection is more important than a perfect post okay, okay let's go and try to shoot it. Mom, I'm going to go have tea, just fall asleep on him no squishy cheeks just softness there ago beautiful gorgeous can just keep your eyes closed for me, sweetheart you're doing great remember to just listen to my voice. I'm gonna tell you exactly what to do. You don't have to worry about a thing. Okay? Okay. Peter here. Lauren I'm gonna have you step on the other side of her so we know like a light and can you go ahead and turn down the light here on the right? Pop off one of the lights. It's a little too hot. Okay. Thank you. Perfect. I usually just take a test shot to kind of feel it out. Let mama know that I'm doing things and go ahead, just fall asleep on in. Mama. There you go. And she's doing good she's popping her chin out now, mom, go ahead and tuck your chin down just a little bit. See how that change the pose she's hiding behind him. I don't want that kind of bring your cheek around. Yeah, you social way. Here we go. Perfect. And I want you to turn your entire body a half an inch towards my big light over here to your right beautiful mama. Just keep your eyes closed and lauren was going take her hair and brush it out so I can see her face a bit more beautiful, gorgeous and honestly, what a lot of lauren does and these newborn poses is just that hair you know it's much easier than me getting up and off the but notice how I'm standing up high like this good job, momma okay, I'm gonna go ahead and just take if you start to listen to my voice sweetheart you're doing beautiful he's still sweet I don't want you just think about him doing little popcorn kicks in your belly there we go beautiful you know what I want you to do is just turn towards them and I want you to just touch your nose to him and breathe him in gorgeous don't move I'm gonna come in closer julia the studio so I do actually that would be fantastic. I was I always forget that those influenced my life is gonna change everything when we do that we get changed. I forgot I can't chip perfect good job, momma and right there I just want you big small eyes your baby boy kill okay he's moving around a bit, which is okay his arms were not in the perfect position. I could get a lot more into the details if I wanted here but these air still gorgeous connected images and when I'm in the in the client session I'm goingto go for it, okay, okay, what I'd like it to is go ahead and see how he's kind of turned into her arm he's not facing me completely it's a little bit of a flaw in the post okay, I would love it if his right shoulder was a little bit more towards me but he's also not fully asleep yet, so I'm a little nervous to move him because I want to get the shot right? I wanted something, but I'm not gonna fuss with him, ruin it and then have to await all over for it again. That's gonna make my session drag out four hours? Okay, so but I think I am going to go ahead and us with it just a little bit to see, since we're in the interests of glass here. Okay, so what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna lift him up out of your your left arm a little bit, okay? And when I say so when I do that, I want youto bring this arm up higher and remember how your other arm was back here. So we're going to kind of shifted a little bit, try mama from that shoulder back and bring legs this way their way. Okay, but clearly talking perfect. Ok, hee, I don't like to be masked with let me sleep. He's doing awesome. Oh, kanye piano baby hazard of the job. Thank you. And one of the reasons I keep your c section okay, um, one of the reasons I keep towels on hand just got a costco and what I asked her what sorry I'm gonna put my hand in your crotch here for second in the personal bubble space most women have no bubble after giving birth but you always wanted oh um put him in a more comfortable position so he's a little bit so just yeah just kind of putting your arms like you're gonna pull them beautiful keep him like that okay here's what happened gone just gone like tell us you go jiggle jiggle jiggle let me get the tell against leaving we miss um so here's what happened way moved him he didn't like it but he's now in it's not gonna last but that's okay he's now in a more natural position like mother would actually hold him rather than a moor manufactured post before you can change positions if you need me oh like lauren were they thanks for your company um so you know, I taking some risks and I'm messing with it messing with the post oh really? So this is just kind of the process of what happens in a baby session and it's actually kind of good that you guys get to see all this because this is like a total normal day for me and you know oftentimes you get in these situations like babies like absolutely perfect maybe they're never like that this is how eighty percent of babies are okay so getting the good ones that sleep the whole time that's like awesome that we always like high five each other like yeah great sachin biggest slept the whole time okay and you also have to consider that she probably wasn't able to follow the directions I set forth I have a complete newborn preparation sheet that I send my clients and say you need to do these things if you do your homework we're going to get great images for you and one of those is trying to keep the baby awake for an hour or two before they come see us they think I'm crazy how do you keep a newborn awake? Okay it's hard give them techniques and and tricks and then I have them feed them right when they get here and that kind of primes them don't want to crash out okay it's not I mean you don't do this excessively it's not like you're torturing the child they keeping him awake I don't want you to go that far but I want them to kind of have an awake period before they come to the studio. Does that make sense? I also do all the war babies in the morning okay new borns tend to be better in the morning there is something called the witching hour which occurs between four and eleven p m and baby I mean all these moms like smiling at me there like you and it's like that time when babies just fussy the day has a warrant on them the day light has has just worn on their systems for the day so they tend to be a little easier woken up there not sleepy they're not as happy all the time eating throughout the day the gas that's so it's just like the nighttime calms them down you know what I mean? It's that diurnal rhythm and so the late afternoon is not the most ideal time to be shooting a baby either how's he doing he's much better happy boy happy boy. Okay, so we're going to move onto a different pose in case I want you to go ahead and actually gonna go ahead and take him and he's like grabbing on your finger so you think I could take him or you think he's going should we let him sit in your arms for a minute? Okay, when I take I'm very close to mama and you know I have to admit with men who do this it might behoove you to get a female assistant who can who you feel comfortable going close up to mom because if I was a man it would be a little awkward for some new mothers not always but you have to consider that I mean it's definitely thought to keep in mind okay go and stand up for me, sweetie now she got some well people honor but that's ok let's go and take the stool out we're going to do what's called football pose okay so that's more fuzzies on you here unfortunately it's gonna have to be dealt with later especially if I want to keep her in this shirt or she didn't bring anything extra so that's what we're going to assume okay whole pumpkin fest little man okay so I want this hand to go up here like this okay he's going to sit in the crook of your arm like this against your chest with this hand up and over the back to keep everything secure now I normally do this pose with dance because their chests are flat and there's a nice they can hold their arm a little bit separate and create this nice pocket so mama can too but the breasts or sometimes in the way so you have to take that into consideration but I do want to show you what the post looks like we'll see if he can do it some good okay come on caleb you've got this down bubba everything we could do it if it gets really fussy we can wrap him I rap awake babies all the time and that's the ticket if you have a baby that's wide awake and won't go to sleep you wrapped the heck out of that sucker swaddle him until you can't move okay and we may have to go that direction of he no, you keep up okay? The awkward thing with this pose is that his head is here I have to like flip him over to get him into it so it's going to take me a couple minutes to do it since he's awake with a really sleeping baby it's a piece of cake we might actually end up wrapping him because once you wrap them up they kind of feel more secure and it's um a little easier to get him in get there then yeah, you can only get his belly you might not let me dio towards me I want him on his belly. Okay, lift up her hand christen her could make sense of the o a lot of what I'm doing right now is leading this child kind of figuring out what triggers his toughness and what helps him calm babies really like to have hands on the head like they really like you know, when you were sick as a kid and your mom would put your hand on your head very comforting way I kind of liken it to that it's very comforting to have the head and that's often like when we're on the beanbag what lawrence job is to just keep the hands on the head ok so go ahead and bring your arm underneath him just a little bit more just turning him slowly but surely the arm now so he's more comfortable beautiful ok, so all I'm basically doing is turning him no mama let everything relax on your body because he could feel the tension in you there we go that was it works a lot sometimes I just did you feel him kind of go when parents get tense when parents get tense, the baby can feel it and somebody's parents don't even know their tents now if I really wanted this pose perfect I would put him in taco position, which is the legs under coming out on this side he's a big baby and I could tell from having played with him that he can't do that okay, some babies can't do it it's it's very hard on the hips so you need to be careful that you don't know that you don't stress the baby's hips that they can boy little peanut hundred percent okay that's better swallow swinging size side positions shushing and sucking and so mama stick stuck her finger in his mouth and he's sucking on it and feel a little bit better latching on a little bit. There we go you can also tell a tense baby even if they're not fussing or crying, they'll be white knuckles, you'll see the white knuckles and the fingers and that's a really good indication that they need some time to settle okay, obviously his arm I don't want that there. I'm going to move it okay for a good pose. His legs are not ideal, but since he is a sensitive baby I'm going to shoot this. Okay, so I really want you understand that in the real world sacrificed suppose for the connection and the image in an ideal world with a fantastic baby great perfected do it all you want on. We could sit here and wait forever for him to settle now or I can in an interesting business in time no way little miss charlotte over there doing way give him a break. Maybe they'll want a little snack or something. No. Hey, hold on, he's good questions. You look at me like you want to talk to me. Kanna oh, I'm just here for you if you need me, I just yeah, I want to go ahead with my break for a second. Just wondering how long in a typical session like say do start at nine I usually start around nine am yes, and then we we feed so we start shooting around nine thirty and it typically goes. So what? Lauren about eleven thirty at the most I think we're about eleven thirty at the most occasional go to twelve which by that I'm going, oh oh, I gotta ask you this get this over with because I I want it too you know I'm I'm yeah I'm an artist but I'm also trying to make a living and if a session goes for five hours then it's it's not efficient so and I do think it's entirely possible to get artistic connected images in a shorter time time span but that's about it I let him go a little bit longer would you say that normal kind of worked with him a little bit more just cause he was kind of in and out in and out and out but you could clearly see there was a point of no return like we lost him and then you take a break take a break let mom go out go feed and that may calm him down and we'll come back we'll bring it and sometimes we do that until we get the shot and let me tell you there are times when it's gone three hours or so and spo she and I attend are like oh that was rough okay then there's been sessions that full platinum sessions with full family and baby being bagged bucket everything that had been what an hour and a half yeah and bam thank you man we just fired through it okay so baby sleeps the whole time and that's it but you and I have had rules where certain getting really warm I have had new rules in place because parents like will circumcise the boy the day before they come to me. I learned that lesson quick, that that's not gonna happen. And I had to send that baby home. He came back the next day. So there are times when the baby is so upset and so in controllable that you come back, you reshoot, it happens. Maybe once or twice a year. We have that issue. But it does happen, so don't be. Don't let george beat you up. If it happens sometimes that's just the way the cookie crumbles. They will come back the next day and you're fine. I had one session with my best client. Her son had a baby and she brought the baby in. We photographed it. He was so challenging and a really tough baby. I was wrapping up and I'm I just contacted. What did you have for dinner last night? Because I had thai food. Uh, spicy food baby was ghastly beyond believe that's. Why she was so upset the whole session. So it took us a really long time. So you will discover that these policies and rules and and and suggestions to mom to prepare will come into play, you'll develop them as you go, because you'll learn from from errors and mistakes.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

BD Design Cards
Butterfly ClamShell Lighting Set Up
Newborn Posing Design
Newborn Prepartion Sheet
Standard Lighting Set Up
Studio Gift Card
Keynotes
Gear Guide
Downloads with RSVP

Ratings and Reviews

Natalia Malinko
 

This is the second course with Julia I have seen. And it's amazing and very inspiring in so many ways! I appreciate so much the honesty of Julia, her spirit for doing things she loves. Like a photographer and artist myself, I feel identified with her perception of world and the passion for artistic and family photography. This course is about never give up, it's about hard work, and also it's about cultivating creativity and honesty. I highly recommended this course to every photographer who want to grow and understand himself and the business of professional high-quality photography. Thanks, Julia and Creative Live, for this one!

a Creativelive Student
 

So glad I bought this class - well and truly worth the investment. This course has helped me realise why it is so important to make an emotional connection and how to use it to my advantage {while giving my clients the very best too}. I cannot wait to try some new printing/mounting techniques...so glad Julia was kind enough to share this! I got a lot out of this course and would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to take their newborn photography business to the next level.

Jenny White
 

This class was amazing!!! Julia does a great job of showing her process, how she captures beautiful images from start to finish. It was worth every dollar I spent!!

Student Work

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