I wanted to write a blog post about how to achieve an "un-posed" newborn portrait for quite some time but didn't have the ideal photos to include. Then came baby Lulu, who was an absolute dream to work with. I don't think I ever saw her eyes in our 3 hours together.
Don't get me wrong, I love posed portraits (like the "bum-up" pose below) and do them in every session, but there is something so beautiful about a photo of a newborn moving freely on their own. The parents probably see their newborn moving this way everyday, and will likely cherish these photographs later as they remember exactly how their tiny baby stretched their leg, or curled their hands.
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My favorite types of "un-poses" (not sure that's a word) are on neutral backdrops, mainly black or white. I try to avoid using props that will take any focus away from the newborn and stick with simple wraps, or nothing at all. For the image above, I placed my beanbag at a 90 degree angle, 3 feet from a large sliding glass door. I pushed in the center of the beanbag to form a little well and placed the wrap on top. Then I set baby Lulu on the beanbag at at angle, so her little face would get more light. At first, her ankles were crossed on her belly and I took one corner of the wrap around her bottom and tucked it behind her back and did the same thing with the other side. She wasn't a fan of having both her legs tucked and decided to kick one of them out while she stretched out her little fingers. Lulu kicked out her left foot many times throughout the session and I thought it was something important to document.
This next series is done on a simple piece of black fleece, with a well pushed into the bag to help her curl a bit and feel more cozy. The beanbag is still 90 degrees from the window, but I placed the baby at the same angle to create a bit more shadowing. I placed her on the beanbag with her legs curled and then stood over her (camera strap around neck) and shot these images in succession. You can imagine the baby kicked her poor mother in the womb just like this :-) I like to edit these portraits with a soft and moody, matted black and white to really bring out the shadows.
My goal is to do a mix of posed and un-posed shots in every newborn session, and I hope my clients enjoy both types of photography because I certainly do! What do you prefer? Posed or un-posed?
