Lil' Girl

Today our friends were visiting from out of town and we had a photo session / fantastic dinner together. Their baby girl was born prematurely just a couple of days before we were going to fly down to take maternity photos for them. Thankfully their little girl has been blessed with perfect health and I had so much fun taking new baby photos for them.

I definitely learned a lot about photographing newborns today. The planning and prepping....the little props.....the notecard in my back pocket full of ideas that I had been generating over the weeks.......all of that gets thrown out the window when photographing babies. The scenario is more like, photograph quickly and then give the baby plenty of time to regroup with the Mommy. Photograph again and then let the baby get plenty of soothing time. And it makes sense, a new baby really only wants to be held in the loving and protective arms of their Mom and Dad. They do not want to be posed or positioned.

But I actually prefer this because I think that the best photographs of new borns are the photos of them being cuddled and loved by their parents. If I was a newborn, I would certainly prefer to be in a pair of arms vs. propped on a pillow. So this was a real learning experience for me. I found that for me and the style of photography that I have created for myself, I prefer the 'emotional moments'. And some of the best photos that I captured of today were photos of this sweet baby girl looking at the camera over her Mom's shoulder. The biggest and brightest eyes just looking at my camera with curiosity. She felt safe and secure and you can sense this in the photographs.

During the little photo session, my husband was preparing dinner for the group. The day before as I was trying to organize my time to be able to take photos and make dinner he said, "Well I'll make dinner". "You will???" "Yeah, it'll be easy." Oh I thank God over and over again for adding cooking skills to the list of strengths that He has blessed my husband with. And that simple offer took so much stress off of my shoulders. Now I could really focus on the photography without that feeling of being rushed.

And what a smashingly delicious dinner he made. Eight adults, four kids, and two babies.....and dinner was one of his best ever. And it was such a nice evening catching up with our friends and realizing again how lucky we are to have such a strong network of caring and loving people in our lives. We did talk blip for a bit as four of the eight of us are now devoted blippers. I love how blip has influenced the lives around me. I can name a handful of friends who have started this site over the last year or so that I have been blipping. Everyone has their own interpretation of blipping. For a couple of them, it is for the photography but more everyone, it is the daily journaling that has really pulled so many people in. The idea of being able to capture those moments in a daily journal that could be so easily forgotten down the road and deep into the future.

This is one of my favorite photographs of the shoot. I asked permission to use one of them and they said no problem at all. I love how the focus is on the feet but you can still make out those big bright eyes in the background. This is a baby who has been born into unconditional love. And the photos of the baby with her Mommy and Daddy are just precious.