- Mar 19

Newborn Photo Session - Duarte

Photographing newborn babies is not about magic. Above all, it’s about being very patient and learning to respect each baby’s rhythm and physiognomy!

After 8 years of photographing these wonderful beings, I can say that the only way to be able to do this type of work in the shortest amount of time is to work as calmly as possible. When I start a session, the clocks stop and time ceases to exist. For the next 3-4 hours it's just me and the baby. I focus on your breathing, the way you relax your limbs and fall into a deep sleep. Sometimes so fast that I can finish it in an hour and a half or two hours, but time is not the most important thing.

It is important to understand that each baby has their own sensitivity, physiognomy, flexibility and bone structure, and to know how to take advantage of this to get the best out of each baby, each expression.

Never induce or force the baby to sleep. If he doesn't want to sleep, the most important thing will be to let the session flow and know how to take advantage of the wonderful expressions that the baby makes when he is awake.

It's also not filling him with milk if he's not asking for it, much less putting him in forced poses that don't adapt to the positions that are natural for him.

I often have parents who ask me for a certain type of photograph or pose, but if there's one thing that these eight years have allowed me to understand, it's that there's no guarantee or anything that tells us that poses or sequences that work with a baby will work with other. And therefore the most important thing in this type of work is the experience and confidence that the photographer has to be able to interpret each gesture, each movement, each retraction.

It is also essential that parents trust me and be able to tell me the truth when I ask them what the nights, days, baths have been like, and how they interpret their baby's temperament. Sincerity is the basis of a successful session.

And the pacifier? Ahhh this is my greatest ally most of the time! Even though I often have babies who don't yet know how to latch or parents who aren't open to the possibility of using it, it is certainly thanks to it that I can most of the time have the baby calm and relaxed throughout the session. And why is it so important? Because when I take off their clothes it's as if I press 1000 switches that activate their primitive reflexes. It is essential to calm these reflexes to be able to calm a baby and allow him to sleep even without clothes. And although in some cases I can make this happen without using a pacifier, most of the time the sucking reflex is only turned off when the baby sucks.

The age? It is an important but little determining factor. I have already carried out sessions with 5-day-old babies which were much more demanding than sessions I carried out with 1-month-old babies.

So, the most important thing to take away from here is that nothing is in our hands. Anything!

It's natural for parents to have some images in their head, but I can never say that I will do them with your child, because if I do I would be lying.

The photographs from each session are unique, and result (in addition to a series of factors inherent to the newborn and their short experience of intra and extra uterine life) of the relationship I create with each baby.

In a newborn photo session the most important thing is that the parents are able to relax, enjoy and above all trust!

Because the best photograph I take in each newborn session is always the one I've never taken before, and most likely I'll never be able to replicate later.

I leave you with Duarte's 19-day photo session.

Normally I only share a few images from the sessions, but today I wanted to share the gallery we gave to parents.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!