When we shoot your newborn session in your own home, your images are inherently custom. Your images are inherently YOU. Every detail is yours…. your colors, fabrics, and furniture; in your rooms, your baby’s nursery. The personal feel of the images we make is unmatched in anyone’s studio; mine included.

Some might assume that for great in-home images, the house has to be large and immaculate, with amazing window light in every room. While that would of course be wonderful shooting conditions, it’s not a requirement at all. I’ve photographed in tight, dark rooms plenty of times, and come away with awesome image every time. As a matter of fact, two of my very favorite in-home images were in the most cramped spaces.

This one was in a basement bedroom that might have been 6 feet by 8 feet. I even think that’s generous.

And this is an image where I stood in the stairs and shot against a fairly narrow wall as our background. All it took was removing a piece of wall art to borrow the blank wall behind it. It was perfect.

This one was made with me standing in a stairwell shooting the landing at the top if the stairs. Indecently, in the making of this one, we needed a particularly small piece of fabric to line the tiny drawer. I asked my client if she had anything with texture that was a neutral-gray. She brought me some choices, and I chose what was going to work best for the finished image. It was one of her sweaters. Most moms would never in a million years anticipate needing one of her winter sweaters to complete an image like this, so naturally she would never think to bring it to a studio session. This was a prime example of in-home sessions being so advantageous. We are able to make tailor-made images with careful selection of the client’s own colors and fabrics. That’s what makes shooting in-home awesome.

Of course the images where we can really enjoy spreading out make some of the most stunning images.

The only real requirement of the house itself, is that it is picked up.  You just never know what room will have that awesome potential for a great image, so having as many rooms ready-to-go is extremely helpful.

But there is one “requirement” you’ll need to know about up front…

The biggest thing that affects the success of a newborn session (other than the age of the baby) is the temperature of the shooting area.  It has got to be HOT in the area.  In my studio, the building is set to about 88 degrees.  It sounds insane, I know, but it’s imperative.  Newborns are used to HOT. 98.6 degrees was their normal for 9 months.  If we need them to sleep, and I do, then it is completely necessary that we mimic the womb wherever possible.  In-home sessions are a bit more expensive than a studio session, as you can imagine.  If the shooting space is too cool at all, even a warm 82 degrees (crazy, right!?) then it’s probable that our little model won’t sleep deeply enough to sustain newborn posing.

Space heaters might do the trick for very small rooms, but they don’t cut it as a general rule.  We can talk more on why that is when we talk.

I’d love to speak with you about your ‘why’ for shooting in your home.  Please contact me well in advance of your baby’s birthday to plan these special sessions!

See “When to Book your Newborn Session”  and “When We Shoot A Newborn Session” for relevant info!