Skyler Had Other Ideas

This wee darling is 2 week old Skyler showing us what she’s made of.

We’ve known this family for a wee while now and did a family shoot for them last year.  We were booked for their wedding during the upcoming wedding season, but Skyler had other ideas.  She wanted to join the family, so the wedding plans were put on hold.

For those that follow this blog or our Facebook page you’ll know newborns aren’t our regular models.  However, we love capturing moments and what better to capture than the beginning of a new life and the addition of a new family member.

It can be quiet nerve wracking posing and touching someone’s newborn.  Although the parents are usually quite comfortable holding the baby and moving them around; sometimes they can get quite nervous when they’re watching other people handling their tiny precious baby.

With this in mind as we were heading into the parent’s house, Layton commented “whatever happens today I’m not going to be the one touching and posing the baby.  That’s your job”.  But of course, Skyler had other ideas.

We arrived to find her soundly sleeping in her portable cot in the lounge.  She lulled us into a false sense of security.  Getting babies to sleep for newborn shoots can be the hardest part, thankfully Mum Danielle had already accomplished that.  Of course, Skyler had other ideas.

She kindly waited until we had all our gear set up before completely waking up and didn’t seem overly sold on the idea of modelling.  We used this time to grab some nice closeups, but in order to get the shots we came for we needed her to play ball.  But Skyler had other ideas.  She was quite content enjoying her freedom and stretching out.

After about an hour of attempting all the usual tricks Layton’s comment went right out the window as he stood with Skyler firmly planted in his arms calmly rocking her off to sleep.

And right at the end of the shoot, for some very brief but gorgeous moments, we were able to capture her sleeping.

For us photography is not only about capturing memories, but also about telling stories.  When we take on a photoshoot we like to think about an angle or theme for the shoot.

When planning this shoot one of the memories Layton really wanted to capture was something that evokes emotion in almost everyone.  The true baby experience most parents go through…bubs in full flight having a howl.

It’s nice to have the sleeping shots you can look back on and remember how cute and small they were.  It takes you back to when they were newborns and despite being completely exhausted you’d stare at them for ages and contemplate the little person you had a hand in bringing into this world.  Things that make you go awwww!

But we wanted to try something a little different as well.  So with her parent’s permission we ended up doing just that.

And you know what?  That ended up being both ours and the parent’s favourite image from the shoot, which was pretty tough considering the other images where she’s looking cute as a button.  Hence the crying shot made it to the feature spot for this post.

But don’t worry, no babies were harmed in the making of this image and she wasn’t left to howl while we stood round watching and taking photos.  Her Mum was just out of shot dealing with the cause of tears…her extremely full nappy that she wasn’t quite finished filling.

That aside, Skyler was a joy to photograph.  Skyler’s ideas were pretty fantastic afterall!