The Newborn Session. Uncut.
For today’s Monday Musings, I am puling inspiration from my own body of work.
For a little over a year I decided to let go of newborn work so that I could accomplish two things.
The first was to focus more on my family work and second, was to renew my zest for photographing new life.
I fell victim to thinking I could do it all, and be somewhat good at it all. But the reality was that I wasn’t fulfilling what I wanted to achieve for myself and there were areas of my work that suffered because of that. A little selfish maybe. But I could tell there was a true bottleneck to my creativity and that was my work as it stood with newborns. As much as I adored the curled up babies in baskets, bows, backdrops, chin on hand pose..etc..and could quite definitely pull it off in a safe way of course. I just felt it wasn’t my calling. I was creating for my clients because I felt like that is what they wanted to see. But the longing for creating imagery that truly spoke to the soul and could stand the test of time is something I was after. I thought about what I stand for in my business values and how I would only produce those things that I would want for myself [insert more selfish here]. My home is filled with black and white images, detailed shots of of my kids and their favorite things, and a few traditional styled family photos but not very much “posed studio styled” portraits. And when I say studio styled I just mean shots where I have set up backdrops or faux flooring and things of that nature. I’m not in a place where I truly love those images and maybe things will change later on. But I value more expressions, connections and the raw nature in an image. So I took time off to practice my craft and work with families who understood my new vision. I stripped down my newborn sessions and instead opted to use the home as a background and the parents and siblings as props.
This by far has been the most groundbreaking but also scary for me as an artist and a business person. The fear of loosing families who aren’t particular to lifestyle photography and prefer more posed newborn work. Of which I feel like I still can apply some of the same concepts I used before so it’s not a total loss. However, there are just some amazingly talented newborn photographers out there who do specialize in that style that I would happily recommend instead. Even if that means having to say no to a few families.
The more that I can create that is real and can withstand the test of time as a true art piece. The more value there is for the both the client and I. This my friends, is my heart on my sleeve and everything I stand for in my work and I promise to hold my self accountable of creating more of it.