Newborn photography from the other side of the lens!

Our gorgeous Ollie is now 3 weeks old and this week my amazing friend Cass of Cass Davies Photography travelled all the way from Wales to Edinburgh to photograph our two boys together. She also managed to convince me to step in front of the camera for a change and photographed me with Ollie which was something that I didn’t relish doing but can genuinely say I am SO glad that I did!

As a newborn photographer I work every week with other peoples babies. I ask them to trust me and hand over their days old baby to me to pose and soothe. I ask new Mums and Dads to sit and relax and let me do the work. I now realise just how difficult that can be! Watching someone else soothe your baby is in itself a weird feeling as when your baby needs something you automatically feel like you should be the one to do it! Just as I hope my clients have trust and confidence in me, I had absolute confidence in handing Ollie to Cass for her to settle and pose him. She has been photographing newborns much longer than me and is an expert. In fact she trained me a few years ago! She has trained hundreds of newborn photographers over the years and really really knows her stuff. I had literally zero worries in handing over my son to her and leaving her to do her thing. Or so I thought!

It’s actually really difficult to just sit back and relax and not do anything as a new parent. If Ollie cried my automatic response was to ask if she wanted me to get him  dummy or grab the white noise machine or whatever else. Cass didn’t need my help, she totally had everything under control and I knew that of course but I couldn’t help but ask if I should do something to help!

Watching her settle and pose him was lovely and I had a few tears in my eyes seeing everything come together especially when lewis came in to pose with his baby brother. The shots of the two boys were top of my priority list and having seen the finished image (which I won’t share yet as it’s being kept top secret for family to see first!) I had yet more tears and a huge feeling of gratitude that I would have those images forever.

Now comes one of the other tricky things that I ask of my clients – I need to choose! Gah!

I already have my favourite image which was shot and edited with a wall in mind to display it on but I have to choose which product to order which is going to be tricky! My favourite supplier of  wall art is a wonderful company called The Print Foundry and their products are simply stunning. You will have seen some if you’ve ever been to my studio, and no doubt heard me gush about how beautiful they are!

Those of you visiting next year for a photoshoot will be able to see the final wall piece when it has pride of place in our home just likeI hope my photos have pride of place in yours.

It’s been an emotional experience being on the other side of the lens and I have definitely come away with a better insight into how my clients feel. I hope this will help me better put you all at ease and to enjoy the experience as much as possible in future!

You can read about Ollie’s birth at St Johns hospital here