Newborns captured with their siblings can make for a wonderful newborn photography session. It might take you an hour or two to convince a bigger brother or sister to follow your direction as their family photographer, but the result is always worth it.
In the pictures below, 4 year old Ryan is holding her 10 days old little sister Tina on beanbag. We held this newborn baby photography session in North Vancouver at their place.
Ryan wasn’t expecting us in his home and until his mom explained what was going on. For the first minutes he resisted to join us at the scene, we tried all of our strategies to have him participate in the photography session.
Compared to other photo sessions it took us a long time to finally get his attention. We continued to try to get him to warm up to us and after almost an hour of chatting, asking his opinion and trying to create a friendly atmosphere. He eventually climbed the bean bag and lied down to hold his little sister, we were so very happy he decided to join us! We capture a variety of pictures to capture the best emotions that we were hoping for….
The images below best achievement of the newborn sibling photography session. For the rest of the photo shoot, Ryan hanged out around, tried to talk and help us with the compositions. Now we have a little friend named Ryan who rocked the sibling shot with his lovely charismatic look.
As a family & newborn baby photographer, you never know what to expect. Some siblings surprise you with their cooperation and enthusiasm but for some other takes longer time. However there are some notes we always consider to get the best result.
Obviously the most important part as always is PATIENCE…..
It’s the point you should think beyond the business side of your job and just think about a result that can tell a great story for years. It’s worthwhile to keep on trying and not giving up.
When we enter to clients place with giant soft boxes, back drop stands setting up for the photo shoot or even when a family come to our studio, it sounds really strange to a sibling at this age. They wonder who we are and what we are doing.
One part is the parent job to explain everything to their kids, on the other hand its our responsibility to manage the photo session with very important and efficient steps. Let see what we always do in JaNa.Photography to capture the best sibling shot during a newborn baby photography session:
- We always start with the sibling photography at the beginning of the session
- Safety, the first priority. We make sure both baby and older sibling are safe
- Build the trust slowly and patiently
- We make it very friendly and approaching for older sibling, although we try not to come down on their level. If we come to their level we will loose them and they won’t listen to us. This would make the situation unsafe for baby
- We always ensure them it will be very quick, so that she/he can go and play after they are done
- We Don’t expect the sibling to lie down on beanbag and hold the newborn baby by themselves. We always talk to them kindly and describe what we are going to do and what we are expecting them to do
- For baby safety, in some props composition, we take individual picture picture of baby in prop and sibling on the side. Later on we combine the 2 pictures with Photoshop.
- When the little toddler is holding the little sister/brother, we make sure their arm, head and body are secure and it’s easy for them hold the baby
- We always have the parents close by
Capturing family photos mean so much for the parents. The pictures are going to last forever and as newborn baby and family photographer we must use the best of our skills to make it work with the best possible result.
