3 Tips for Taking Your Own Newborn Photos

Home Isolation Photography

It’s been a difficult couple of months as Covid-19 circles the globe and if you’ve just had a baby 🙋🏻‍♀️ or are currently pregnant you’re might be wondering how to capture the first few months of your newborn’s life without the assistance of a professional photographer. Ack, did we need extra stress?!? Nope, I didn’t think so!

Thankfully, keeping family photography low stress is my game. I like to photograph babies at home doing the things they do best - instead of using props and putting them in teapots, I prefer to capture them sleeping in their bassinet or snuggling with mum. Since newborns are difficult to photograph at the best of times I’ve laid out three quick tips to help you take your own newborn photos during this pandemic.

1. Find The Best Light

The greatest challenge to any indoor photography is light - there never seems to be enough of it! Find a room in your home that is filled with the most natural light possible. If you’re lucky, this will be a bedroom or living room. Turn off any lamps or overhead lights before you start shooting.

The townhouse where I live is exceptionally dark - one of the things I hate the most about it - but, I’m lucky enough that the master bedroom faces south and it features a large sliding glass door. This lets in beautiful diffused light and our bed is the perfect posing platform to put the baby down.

Here’s Rhys (just 5 days old!) laying on the bed in our master bedroom. The large sliding glass door (natural light source) is to his left for this shot.

2. Happy Baby

After years of photographing families, I have found its best to capture newborns in the morning when they are the most agreeable. There’s nothing worse than attempting to capture a cranky baby - once the crying starts, save your frustration and try again another day. I’ve found that mornings are when newborns and infants are happiest… as the day wears on, so do their patience for our antics. Like anything, there might be a better time that works for your family. For me, I find its best to photograph Rhys after his morning feed when he is content and the morning light isn’t too harsh. 👶🏻

Of course, life isn’t always rosey and you may have a baby who is colicky and crying almost all day long (you’re doing great mama - hang in there!!). If this is the case, try and grab some shots in those fleeting moments when you have the energy to tackle the task. You can get great photos in 2 minutes just as well as 20 minutes. Again, I tend to find mornings are best before the day gets away from me and there are a million other things to do like homeschool, make lunches or do laundry. Ugh.

Rhys is 1 month old in this photo - again on the bed in the master bedroom. The light is behind him which created a moodier look with more shadows. He’s laying in his SnuggleMe lounger where he’s content to stay for ages!

3. Avoid Visual Distractions

My final tip for today is to avoid visual distractions in your photographs. Most commonly in newborn photography, these are large logos which take the focus away from the baby’s face and draw your attention to the giant swoosh on their t-shirt. Keep in mind that they are tiny and even something seemingly complimentary like a letter board may take away from them. This isn’t to say that every photo needs to be solely of the baby… it doesn’t… but one of the best ways to capture a newborn and all their sweet details is to do it up close.

Back to letterboards for a second. While it’s cute to capture the trendy month-by-month photos with a favourite stuffed animal or sticker set to display their age, remember to take away those objects for a couple photos also. I’ve seen some pictures so full of props, blocks and favourite chairs that we barely see the person we’re interested in capturing. A photo less these distractions, with the focus on your baby, will be the one you want to hang on your wall in the future. 🙌🏼

Rhys is 2 months old in this one - still on the bed in the master bedroom! This one embodies all three tips: lots of light coming from the window to the right, a happy smiling baby and no distractions to take away from his sweet face.

I hope these quick tips will help you get started on your newborn photos while in quarantine! Try to have fun with it and make it a weekly habit (yay, something to put on the calendar!). The more photos you take the better your images will become. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below and sign up for my newsletter if you’d like more tips on newborn and family photography.

Stay safe!