Lifestyle vs Posed Portrait Session - Chicago's Premier Newborn Photographer

Lifestyle vs. Posed Newborn Sessions

Hannah Drews Photography offers two kinds of sessions for documenting this unique moment in your child's life. Choose between a lifestyle portrait session or a posed session based on your desired outcome from our time together. We are thrilled to work with you in creating one-of-a-kind imagery that will commemorate this amazing family event. Read on to learn more!

What is a Lifestyle Session?

We find that lifestyle portraits are an ideal way to portray the raw emotion of the moment. Candid images, unposed, artistically capture things just as they are; real moments frozen in time for you and your family to enjoy over and over. They may additionally include shots of mom and dad, siblings, and even the family pet interacting with baby! 


Lifestyle sessions do not require as much time as a posed session, and are ideal for fussy babies who have difficulty falling asleep, or babies older than 14 days. A typical lifestyle session lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on baby. 

What is a Posed Session?

Posed sessions may take a bit more time and elbow grease than lifestyle, but it's well worth the work! With a few props and cooperation from baby, posed sessions result in images that will make the whole family, friends, and Facebook buds go Ga-Ga. Cute hats, baskets, and blankets surround your little one while we capture Baby slumbering in adorable poses. A typical posed session may last anywhere from 2 to 3 hours, and generally requires cooperation from mom and dad. We require a minimum of 3 hours per session to ensure we get the best (and most adorable) results.

If you’re having trouble deciding which type of session you’d like for your newborn, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions - we’ll be happy to work with you one on one to create beautiful and meaningful heirloom imagery!

All pricing info can be found here

Hannah Drews of Hannah Drews Photography is an award-winning photographer serving the city of Chicago as well as the surrounding suburbs. She specializes in Chicago newborn photography, Chicago child photography and Chicago family photography and works primarily with beautiful, natural light. Booking with Hannah Drews Photography ensures you will receive a timeless portrait that you and your family will cherish for a lifetime. Her style is classic, natural, and simple.

Welcome Baby Jacob! - Chicago Newborn Photographer

This little guy came in for his session last month and he was such a sweet boy! I may be a little behind on blogging, but that is nothing new... Jake's mom had warned me that he loves being held and may be a bit fussy, but once he fell asleep, I don't think he made a peep for the whole photo shoot. I absolutely love this first image with minimal props and neutral colors. He also loved being on his tummy, so I took advantage of that and did a few different poses with his head resting on his hands. Isn't he adorable?! 

Welcome to the world, Jake! 

Hannah Drews of Hannah Drews Photography is an award-winning photographer serving the city of Chicago  as well as the surrounding suburbs. She specializes in newborn, maternity, and family portraits and works primarily with beautiful, natural light. Booking with Hannah Drews Photography ensures you will receive a timeless portrait that you and your family will cherish for a lifetime. Her style is classic, natural, and simple.

Welcome, Baby Sydney- Chicago Newborn Portraits

Sydney was in the middle of my crazy baby-filled week (10 babies in 11 days!). I love being a newborn photographer in Chicago. I am able to meet so many lovely families and feel so fortunate when they chose me to document their sweet little babies, only a few days old. Sydney's parents purchased a newborn and maternity session package which allowed me to document their journey from husband and wife to mom and dad. Sydney was such a sweet little newborn girl, and slept peacefully through her whole shoot (just what a newborn photographer hopes for :)

Welcome to the world, Sydney!

How sweet is this photo of baby Sydney on a hand-knitted gift from grandma?! 

Hannah Drews Photography

Natural Newborn Photography and Un-Posing- Chicago Newborn Photographer

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.

Vs.

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?

www.hannahdrewsphotography.com