Newborn season.
Something happens in the quiet months between September and December. And I don't just mean that the days grow shorter and colder, that the leaves turn and fall, that the sun sets earlier, that the nights stretch longer. I don't mean Halloween, Bonfire Night or even Christmas, creeping in to mark our calendars with bright costumes and angel-filled nativities.
No, I mean newborn season.
Every year this September - December time seems to be when my inbox floods with enquiries for newborn photoshoots in Oxfordshire. Parents who didn't think they'd be the sort to want a newborn photoshoot, suddenly finding themselves thinking of nothing else. Marvelling at their new baby, changing before their very eyes, growing into the skin that was born too-big on them; in awe of the eyes that blink open to register the soothing voice of mummy and daddy; desperate to capture the hairy ears and shoulders, the wrinkly backs and dry peely toes before it's all... passed.
it's okay
It's okay to change your mind. It's okay to suddenly see the value of capturing this moment before it's gone.
To do so, you really need nothing other than yourselves.
I have plenty of newborn and baby clothing items in my client closet that you are more than welcome to use. I have blankets, a posing bean, Moses baskets. You really do only need to have yourselves, and one or two slightly 'picked up' spots in your home, preferably near to some good light. And if even that feels overwhelming, leave it down to me. I'm happy to help tidy the best spots when I arrive.
I don't believe that the room is the first thing you notice in a single one of my newborn photos. I believe you first see the tiny baby. How loved they are. The smallness of their toes. The way they fit against their parents' chest, or shoulder. All the irresistible newborn detail of them that makes this time so unbelievably magic.
I don't believe you notice the room they're in; I don't think you can tell if they were taken in the kitchen, the bedroom, or the lounge.
All you notice is that they were, and always have been, so very loved.
let's catch the smoke
Perhaps your birth was long, or short. Empowering and life-affirming, or a whirlwind that has forever altered you. Something about birth puts life into perspective. It's all so short, so fleeting. As your baby unfurls, stretching out to touch the sides of the Moses basket that once swamped them, it can be hard to make sense of it. How can something that is still so small, be at the same time so much bigger than they once were? How can they be the same person, but their features shift and change almost by the day? How can you wish the long days after the long nights away, yet want to hold onto the moment like smoke escaping your grasp?
You feel time passing with acute awareness when you are tired and sore. You feel its slowness, and its length. You know, objectively, that your baby will one day be two, four, eighteen. You fantasise about who they might be then; how it might be easier than now. Then you sniff their newborn head and feel them sigh and settle at the comforting closeness of you, and you're suddenly panicked by the thought that they could ever not need you. That baffling dichotomy of motherhood. I get it; I've been there 3 times myself. The wonder and hardness are both true, all at once.
Photographs really are the only way to time travel back to this moment. To remember their smallness, the smell of their head, the ache of tiredness, the ache of love.
Like catching the smoke, and inhaling it one more time.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE
It isn't too late to capture your baby, even if we are past that initial few weeks. For the super-sleepy, curled up shots, that first two weeks is ideal, as baby will still be tired and a bit more happy to be put down to allow us to capture all those gorgeous details. If you're currently pregnant and considering booking in a newborn photography session with an Oxfordshire photographer, that first 10 days or so is the prime time to do so, but if your baby is already older, but you can't stop that nagging feeling that you need to capture this time before its gone, it isn't too late.
In the same way that your child is gorgeous at two, or four, or eighteen, your baby is still worth capturing at four weeks, or 6 weeks, or 8. They will have their eyes open, which means you get to see those first blinks, frowns and smiles. They will not want to sleep necessarily, but is that such a bad thing? You get to see their faces, who they are. They will stretch and yawn. We can capture the curl of their fluffy hair, the dry patches on their feet and legs, where the cord still is or once was.
All of it is worth capturing and worth remembering.
It is never too late.
If you'd like to be part of my Newborn Season in Oxfordshire this Autumn / Winter, I'd love to help you hold on to this fleeting time through my photography. Please do enquire below.
Moments to hold onto
Let's CAPTURE YOUR NEW BABY
