Best times to photograph a baby will tell you my opinion about the best times to photograph your child in the first year of life. There are so many nice milestones in that first year. However there are some times that a baby will just take better portraits. I have specialized in newborn and baby photography since I first opened my Holly Springs portrait studio in 2014. Therefore, my opinion is based on years of experience. I hope this article helps you decide when you bring your baby to a professional photographer.
In the beginning I generally photographed babies at newborn, three, six, nine and one year milestones. There are many parents that still love to have milestone pictures taken that often. Over the years and having photographed thousands of babies I have found that there are TWO best times to photograph a baby by a professional photographer. Those times are newborn and somewhere between 7 and 9 months. Those seven to nine months old’s are what we photographers call the “sitters”. The other milestones like smiling, walking and one year could be taken care of in a mini session. A mini session is an affordable way for parents to captures as many milestone moments as they like.
Let’s talk about the why newborn and sitters are the best times to photograph a baby in the first year of life.
Newborn portraits of your child are so wonderful to have and the sessions are a lot of fun. They are a wonderful way to celebrate the birth of your new baby. They are a precious keepsakes and can help you introduce your new baby to the world with birth announcements or by using social media platforms. Children grow so quickly and these beautiful keepsake images help you remember how tiny they were on that special day when they came into the world. Newborns are best photographed between day 10 and day 21. Click HERE to read about planning a newborn photo session with me at my Raleigh newborn studio.
The next best time to photograph a baby in the first year of life is the sitter stage. That is usually somewhere between the ages of seven and nine months. I feel the best results will be had by the baby using their thigh muscles to hold themselves in a sitting position. When babies first learn to sit up they will be using their stomach muscles rather than their legs for balance….this is not quite the time yet as it’s not as comfortable as sitting and using the leg muscles. You can feel their tummy when they are sitting up to know just when it’s time to take more portraits. Here are a few reasons why this sitter age is so wonderful:
1. Sitters are stationary for the most part. This allows photographers to pick the perfect locations to photography your baby. This may be in a studio with controlled lighting or outdoors where your photographer finds the best light available to make your images shine.
2. Most babies that age love to get attention. Because they can’t go anywhere on their own they are used to commanding the attention right there where they are and that is great for photos.
3. They are also usually more chubby at this time in their development because they can’t get up and run it off yet. This is the time in their life that the chub is so adorable.
4. Babies this age seem to have less stranger danger than they do starting at a year. This is also great for photographs.
5. Let’s consider the nature of the child. A one year old has learned to walk or at least crawl quickly. They may have the most pleasant personality when playing but still may not wish to be kept in one area for very long. This will come into play in the studio but even to some degree it will affect outdoor images. One can be fun, but the sitter milestone will give you a larger variety of nice portraits.
I have so many cute hats and props for this sitter age as well. Again I am not prop oriented in my work, liking the child to be the focus of the image, but having a baby size baseball bat or a super cute headband or petticoat is nice. Here are some examples of that age. You don’t want to miss out on this fantastic time to capture images of your sweetie. And the gorgeous angel wings are for boys as well as girls.
Check out THIS LINK to my baby gallery.