I had my first session photographing a newborn in the studio this week and I was lucky to have such a lovely family for it and an adorable baby.

The ideal time to photograph newborns in a studio environment is within the first week or so of life when they are still mostly happy in the foetal position and spend 99% of the time snoozing!

Little Lizzie arrived while I was on holiday so these are at 3 weeks old.  She is already very alert, moving and stretching a good deal, and aware of all the new things going on around her.

For some reason I found myself whistling to her the theme tune to Citizen Smith (I could not tell you why) which happily seemed to work wonders and take her away temporarily from the thought of milk!

Sister Rebecca was quite the most patient and brilliant 5 year old helper I’ve ever had in my studio. I’ve photographed Rebecca before in her playgroup environment. In the studio she was a  little camera shy (reinforcing my view that studios and young children do not generally go well together - you need to let most children be free to roam and do their own thing in a natural environment and capture them unaware). Still, I managed to sneak a few of her towards the end of the session which I love.

Newborn photography: its’ all about creating a calm, warm and totally comfortable atmosphere for mother and baby, not rushing and going with the flow.

Thank you Frances and David. I hope you will like some of these: