Newborn and Family Photography
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Holidays can be a stressful time, so I wanted to make a blog post that will take the stress and confusion out of booking a holiday photo shoot. The best advice I can give is don’t procrastinate it. The earlier you book your session, the more availability the photographer has to give you your preferred date and time. Plus, if you want to have the images printed into cards and mailed out to your family and friends, that will take time that you should also factor into when you book your shoot.
My booking process is very easy. I like to have a quick phone call to go over the details about what my clients want from their photo shoot. Some of the details discussed include the time and location of the shoot, the package selection, and what discounts are currently available. Then, I email an invoice for the booking fee, which is currently $50 to reserve the date and time of the photo shoot. The invoice is paid online with a credit card and is non-refundable.
I’ll be automatically notified when the booking fee has been received, at which point the time and date will be officially reserved (and unavailable to others!) Verbal confirmation does not book a photo session. If for any reason there is confusion about the booking or payment process, then I recommend a quick call, text, or email sent to your photographer to help you resolve the issue. My email is lauren@darlingdigitalphotography.com and I can be reached at 424.256.6193
Happy Holidays! xoxo Lauren Bolanos
I recommend to all my clients that they wear clothing that is light and neutral, such as white, ivory, nude, tan, and/or grey. That way, the photos will match whatever decor you have in your home, if you choose to print and hang some of your images. In my opinion, blue denim acts like a neutral and I recommend it for a timeless classic look. Plus, it’s easy to match with other neutrals.
Pastels, plaids, and prints are okay with a few exceptions. No thick horizontal stripes, which can look like a prison uniform in black and white. No logos. They are distracting unless you want to advertise the logo for a business, and avoid neon colors. Finally, no thin jersey fabric, especially for dresses, it shows wrinkles easily and can be hard to retouch.
My photography style is candid, informal, and relaxed, so I recommend casual clothes that reflect that tone. Keep it comfortable, especially for children. If they are uncomfortable, they won’t have happy expressions during the shoot.
Layers are great. Jackets, wraps, and cardigans can be taken on or off for different styles and poses. They also provide a great way to incorporate different textures, which will add variety to a neutral color palette. I usually recommend women cover their upper arms with a layer, especially if she is the one holding the baby, which may not be the most flattering arm position.
When dealing with patterns, coordinate but don’t match. Having multiple outfits available or texting your photographer outfit options ahead of time is a great way to prep for the shoot. An easy tip for incorporating a pattern, is keep one main subject such as the mom or dad in a pattern, and have everyone else in neutral or in a solid color that matches a color in the pattern.
Don’t be afraid to accessorize. Fashion photographers and stylists are great at this. A pair of earrings will glam up a casual outfit. Hats will make you look like a fashionista. Sunglasses, even folded on your shirt or in your hair, will add an instant california-cool factor. Most of all, don’t neglect your shoes, unless it’s a beach shoot and then you can go barefoot. I also like to provide accessories for newborns, but if you have something you love, I always encourage my clients to have it ready for the shoot.
In creative projects, rules are made to be broken, so you don’t have to follow any of these recommendations that I mentioned above. However, most of us aren’t fashion bloggers or professional stylists so having guidelines are helpful. To simplify, just remember to be comfortable, casual, and wear bright neutrals.
The 35mm f/2 IS USM from Canon is a fabulous budget friendly full frame lens, and since I received it last holiday season, it has rarely left my camera. The 35mm focal length is considered a moderate wide angle, which is great for helping to capture the environment without too much distortion. I used it last Christmas, when I took a ton of family photos in small rooms with low light, and it performed great.
Since I’m based in Los Angeles, and a lot of my clients are in apartments or homes built with a limited amount of space, the 35mm prime was the logical choice. Before, I used a 50mm and I always felt like I couldn’t back up far enough, but I’ve never had that issue with the 35mm. It captures the subject beautifully and makes my client’s home feel large and bright.
Although there are other options for the 35mm at lower f-stops, they were larger, heavier, and more expensive. This lens is compact in comparison to it’s competitors, so you can easily walk or carry it around all day. Which is why the 35mm focal length is preferred by wedding and street photographers who will have to do just that. It has a USM and IS, just like my nifty fifty, which makes it ideal for video work as well. The 35mm focal length is very popular in film, and still photographers will oftentimes use a 35mm when they want to a achieve a cinematic look for an image.
As for the f-stop, I’ve used it wide open at f2 (see image above for example) and been happy with the results, but I usually use higher f-stops to get more of my image in focus, especially when capturing families with children because I want for my families to move around and have fun during the shoot. If I need more light, I can bump up the ISO with my camera and still get good results, and Lightroom has great noise reduction features. The images are tack sharp corner to corner and it’s built like a tank despite it’s size. If you are on a crop frame entry-level DSLR from Canon I would highly recommend this lens. It will give you a similar focal length to a nifty fifty (technically 56mm), which is considered a classic standard focal length. Check out my article, “Nifty Fifty: A Year in Review,” if you haven’t already.
The smile and/or laughing pose is one of the most difficult poses especially with babies, but definitely worth the effort. Just keep shooting as much as possible and see if dad can get baby to laugh. Tickling may be required.
The kissing pose is always mom’s favorite. Dad must always close his eyes and never pucker the lips. Have dad press his lips gently to baby’s temple. Tilt baby slightly toward camera for the best angle, but don’t overdo it. Subtle is more natural looking.
Over dad’s shoulder is an easy pose for every age. Ask dad to look at baby so you get his profile instead of the back of his head. Then, try to get baby to look at camera if possible. I prefer to have natural side light from a window to get some catch lights in baby’s eyes.
In dad’s hands is another favorite of mine for newborns. You can do this with baby on his or her tummy and dad using his other hand to hold the bum, like the image above. Or like the image below, you can have dad hold the newborn’s head in both hands and tilt baby toward camera. Make sure baby’s eyes are facing a window to get those catch lights.
For a dramatic black and white photo, move dad and baby to a window or single light source to get more dramatic lighting. We want bright highlights and deep shadows, so don’t worry about filling in the shadows with other lights. I prefer candid poses to get a more artistic, documentary looking style for my black and white photos. Adding vintage filters in Lightroom is also really fun to play around with.
With Mother’s Day right around the corner, I wanted to share with you my favorite ideas for photography gifts.
1. Photo Books! I have personally designed books using Blurb, and find they offer the most flexibility in paper and design. Plus, you can design your book right in Lightroom and you can usually find 20% discount codes online. I also just tried making a photo book in Snapfish, and I’ll let you guys know how it turns out. But, I am currently very happy with their Mother’s Day discounts. I got my photo book 50% off.
2. Framed Prints! Lots of online sites will print, frame, and ship it to you or your long distance family. I prefer white or black frames because it is easy to match a bunch of frames and create your own gallery wall.
3. Canvas Wraps! What I love about Canvas wraps, are how forgiving the material is. You can have an image with a lower resolution or one that is not perfectly sharp, and it will still look amazing printed large. This is great if your photo was taken with a cellphone camera and has a lower resolution, or your favorite image wasn’t perfectly sharp zoomed in. It still could be the best photo, content is king after all, even if it’s not technically perfect.
4. Photo Mugs! I use Snapfish and like to make these into a funny gag gifts. I find a picture and add some funny text in Photoshop and suddenly you have a great customized gift that shows off your photography skills and your humor. Plus, it makes a great conversation starter when people actually use the mug. It’s small on the budget, but big on personality and effort.
I’ve been using the 50mm f/1.8 STM lens, also known as a nifty fifty, for a full year and I now completely understand the hype around this popular focal length and lens. The nifty fifty on a full frame camera, gives you a similar view to what your eyes see, so it’s a very easy lens to pick up and enjoy. The lens is a budget friendly choice at $125, so it’s considered an easy choice for many who want professional results, at a very affordable price point. At f/1.8 the lens lets in plenty of light, and combined with my Canon 6D, which performs well at a high ISO, makes this a winning combination for photographers that find themselves in low light situations.
Before I owned this lens, I was used to using a zoom lens, so switching to a prime lens was a bit of an adjustment. The 50mm forces you to move your body to get the shot, since the focal length is fixed. This makes for a much more active photographer, which is a good thing in my opinion, and forces you to get a bit more creative with your shot. On the downside, the 50mm is not necessarily the best focal length for every situation. I’ve found in small spaces, a wider focal length would be helpful, such as a 35mm. Many portrait photographers also love the 85mm focal length for the flattering compression of a telephoto focal length.
If video is important to you, this lens has a STM stepping motor which is ideal for video work, where you need a quiet autofocus system. It’s compact and light, which is great if portability and ergonomics are important to you. I’ve often heard the advice that the best camera is the one you have with you, so keeping things light is important if you are going to be carrying or holding your camera for a long period of time. Overall, I’ve been very happy with this lens, so much so, that it’s rarely left my camera body this past year.
Dr. Karisa Peer, one of my amazing clients, founded a virtual support for new moms, called Mother Squad, where moms can video call with other new moms and licenses therapists, within the comfort of their own home. I think it’s an amazing opportunity to connect and help one another by sharing and listening to our stories about early motherhood. Dr. Karisa Peer is a wonderfully compassionate person, and her story about pregnancy, motherhood and founding Mother Squad is such an inspiration. This is her amazing story …
Motherhood was never something that I envisioned for myself. From an early age, I remember other girls in my class carefully holding their baby dolls, brushing their hair, “feeding” them milk, and putting them to sleep. I preferred to bike, play Sega Genesis (Note: It was the early ‘90s), and rollerblade around my neighborhood.
Mothering was a highly valued skill in both my nuclear and extended families. My maternal grandmother had nine children and my great-grandmother gave birth to 13 kids. When I visited my family in Puerto Rico each summer, all of my aunts and uncles would mention that they didn’t need a lot of friends because their family was so large. They had 96 first cousins. Any gathering seemed like a huge party for my mom’s side of the family. Given this tradition, my mother always predicted I would have six babies. Don’t ask me where she got the number six. “Está en nuestra sangre. It’s in our blood,” she boasted.
When I was ten years old, I informed my mom that I did not plan to have children. It was partially because I was placed in a caretaker role for my family. My views were also influenced by certain privileges that I had been afforded. I lived in a developed country, had access to resources for family planning, and was ultimately able to make the choice of if and when I chose to be a mother.
During my childhood and adolescence, my views on motherhood were also limited to the mothers around me. I noticed that many stayed home full-time to cook, clean, and look after their kids. Some of these moms stayed home due to financial reasons (e.g., they couldn’t afford childcare) and others by choice or societal/familial expectations. A large number were taken for granted by their children and/or partners. Other mothers I knew had to work out of necessity; that is, they had to make ends meet. Others chose to work because it was part of their value system and sense of self. Many discussed the frustration of not being able give enough at work and not being able to give enough at home. A lot of this information reified my earlier decision not to have children.
When I turned 35, something weird happened. When I looked at babies, I actually wanted to pick them up and interact with them. I thought about how a lot of my reasoning for not wanting kids was rooted in the fact that I was taught that being a good mother was showing unrelenting selflessness, putting your own needs last, and not complaining about it. At 35, I asked myself: Is this really what encompasses motherhood?
My background is in qualitative and ethnographic research. I put those skills to use and made it a point to meet as many women as I could with children. I met moms who worked. I met moms who stayed at home. I met moms who were single. I met moms who had partners. I met moms who adopted. I met moms who used surrogates.I met moms in the LGBTQI community. I met moms from many racial and ethnic communities. I asked all of these moms what being a mother meant to them. I asked them what they loved about being a mom. I asked them what they hated about being a mom. Overall, the responses were really varied. But something that stood out was motherhood brought out a different kind of love. Not good or bad necessarily…but different. It was at that point that I made a conscious decision that I wanted to give and receive this different kind of love.
When I was 18, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). The OB informed me that it would be more challenging to get pregnant. At the time, it didn’t mean much to me because I was not planning on having kids. When I did make the decision to have children, my doctor confirmed that I would need to undergo fertility treatments.
IVF was not easy. It consisted of daily shots, embryo retrieval, and implantation. Many, many women go through this journey. It can be emotionally and physically taxing and doesn’t always end up how you imagine. Women, for the most part, go through fertility treatments silently. This is why, in 2018, my company, Mother Squad, Inc. will have virtual support groups for women who are going through or went through fertility treatments.
I feel fortunate that I was able to get pregnant with my first round of IVF. However, pregnancy did not start out smoothly for me. Within two weeks, I began to bleed. The doctor diagnosed me with a subchorionic hematoma. Essentially, that is a tear in your placenta, which is where a baby gets its nutrients. The doctor said it would probably heal up if I went on bedrest for a couple of weeks. The tear was very small. Eventually, I stopped bleeding and went back to the OB for another checkup. She cleared me and said the tear had healed.
The next afternoon, I went to my friend’s house for her birthday celebration. When I got home, I had a feeling that something was off. I went to sleep and brushed it off as over exertion. When I woke up, my pants were soaked with blood. My husband and I rushed to the ER. During the wait, I began to detach myself from the pregnancy. I had lost quite a bit of blood and I did not think it was possible for the baby to have survived. Detaching was my coping mechanism to deal with the heartbreak.
The doctors did a transvaginal ultrasound. It was a bittersweet moment. It was the first time we heard the baby’s heartbeat but were also told that there was a tear that covered 40% of the placenta. I had a 50/50 chance of the baby surviving. It was further heartbreak. As a means of not living in a state of constant panic and fear, the only thing I could do was maintain a semblance of hope. I also knew the harsh reality that the baby might not survive.
I had to go on bedrest for a couple more months. The only way I survived the isolation and anxiety was to develop coping mechanisms and strategies to stop my mind from reeling and obsessing. I started going to therapy — virtually. My therapist would call me via video chat. I also tried hypnotherapy.
I am a very pragmatic person and thought it sounded very new-agey but hypnotherapy helped me deal with a lot of the anxiety I faced before, during, and after the pregnancy. This toolkit is what I deeply feel helped save my sanity during the pregnancy. I learned to focus on the present moment, to breathe properly, and to not try to control everything in my life (this was my tendency).
I was then diagnosed with placenta previa, which is essentially that your placenta is too low and labor can happen prematurely. Again, I was told to rest.
I was all rested out. At this point, I was well into my second trimester and very frustrated. I saw ads of pregnant women doing yoga, running, and glowing during their pregnancies. My ad during my pregnancy should have been a mattress commercial. The spot where I laid down actually started sinking in! It was a big change for me. Before the pregnancy, I had always worked, exercised, and kept busy. Even with meditation and all those coping mechanisms — it seemed hard to fathom that I would need to stay home resting for longer.
It took me a while but the thing that really calmed me down was talking to other women who had been through the same experiences. There were friends and friends of friends who reached out to me. They normalized something that doctors could not normalize because of their clinical approach.
“It sucks,” they concurred. By acknowledging this fact, I felt more at ease. They also pointed me towards good resources that helped me get through bedrest — such as good books, funny TV series, movies, website forums of women who had been through similar experiences, and much more. This made the months move a little less slowly.
I finally had my baby in November and we were very grateful that she was healthy. I was also very happy to NOT be pregnant anymore. I was ready to move on from the pregnancy and enjoy life again. Yet, I didn’t realize how different life was going to be after the baby arrived. Having had to detach myself from the idea that the baby was actually going to 100% be here, was a great coping mechanism at that time. Yet, once the baby was here, I had a “oh crap” moment because I hadn’t given myself the time to acknowledge that my life was going to be really different post-baby. I would not be getting my “old” life back after bedrest.
My daughter was born at the end of November. I think back to that time and it was a blur. I remember lots of bleeding, swelling, exhaustion, hormonal changes, and surges of anger towards everyone around me. NO one had previously bothered to tell me how hard it would be post-baby. All of the articles and everything you read kind of stops at the delivery. You are oftentimes left in the dark.
I was completely unprepared for the fact that I was expected to dive into taking care of this little person when I hadn’t even processed that 1) she actually made it earth-side and 2) that I wasn’t getting my old life back exactly as I had left it before bedrest.
This was honestly a hard pill to swallow. I am a great mom. My child is fed, clean, and showered with attention. I did all those things from the beginning. Yet, I did it in a way where I was just going through the motions. So, I didn’t fully emotionally connect to my daughter. It took me a good three months to truly accept the fact that she had made it. I was in shock that a baby was able to survive given a 50/50 chance of survival.
What also made it hard to connect with my daughter was that she cried for hours on end during those first three months. She was colicky and no remedy seemed to help. I thought back to when someone during my pregnancy told me, “Don’t worry. You know what they say… Hard pregnancy, easy baby.” It was total BS. My daughter was not easy. The colic made her very uncomfortable and the only way for her to communicate that discomfort was to wail for hours.
I went back to therapy during this time because I started showing signs of postpartum depression. I felt guilty that I couldn’t connect to my baby. We had been through so much together and survived it. Why couldn’t I look into her eyes lovingly and feel my heart warm up? I look back now at the situation from a distance. Some advice that I got from other moms, which helped is 1) This is a finite amount of time, it won’t last forever (Note: Sometimes it feels like a day is a year.) and 2) Not everyone connects to their baby immediately. It depends on your personality and how you attach to others in general.
These two pieces of advice helped me stop putting so much pressure on myself. I was able to relax a little more, so I could enjoy those short moments when my daughter wasn’t wailing her head off. We were actually able to start getting to know one another better. But it took a good 4 to 5 months.
What I discovered during these isolating experiences during pregnancy and those first couple of months with my daughter is that connecting to other new moms who are going through the same experiences is crucial. It de-stigmatizes when we feel guilty that we aren’t doing something “correctly” or that it’s not “good enough.” You discover that you are just all constantly learning as you move along through motherhood.
These experiences are what inspired me to create Mother Squad, Inc. I am passionate about the fact that women should not be made to feel worthless or invisible when they become mothers. Rather, we can support one another during the process.
Most mom groups out there focus on the mom and the baby (and oftentimes more on the baby). Mother Squad’s mission is to help the mother during that first year of motherhood. As a community, we chat about sleep deprivation, physical and emotional changes, and shifts in relationships with friends and family. We do this through video chat groups facilitated by licensed therapists. The therapists are there to provide the educational info the group would like to know more about. We are driven by your needs. The best part is that we are online, so you get to meet and see people via video chat from all over the U.S. and from the comfort of your home.
My daughter is now 10 months old. I know that the support of other moms helped me. It still does. If you are a new mom who wants to join our community, visit us at mothersquad.com.
Mother Squad offers video chat support groups for new moms, which are facilitated by licensed therapists. We believe that mothers are even stronger together. You can also see more of our stories on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Dr. Karisa Peer
Founder, Mother Squad, Inc.
When photographing babies or newborns, one of the most important skills you can learn is how to freeze or show motion in your photos. This feature is controlled by the shutter speed, which is why I highly recommend shutter priority for parents that may not be completely comfortable shooting in manual mode. To freeze motion in my family sessions, ideally I prefer to shoot at 1/125 or faster. This image above is shot at 1/125 at f/3.5 ISO 1000. It freezes all the motion in the photo, except for the baby’s hands which were banging on the piano keys. Now, I like having a little motion blur to help tell a story, but that is a creative preference. To completely freeze the scene, I would have to increase my shutter speed to 1/250. This speed is generally recommended for children when they are playing around.
In shutter priority, you can set the ISO and shutter speed and then the aperture setting will be on auto. But, what happens if you want to change the depth of field? Well, then your best choice would be manual mode. I’m not going to get into the specifics of manual model in this article, but there are tons of resources for learning manual mode online. My personal favorite is the Fundamentals of Photography class on Creativelive.com. It’s super in-depth and full of really helpful animated slides that are ideal for visual learners.