Sunday Media / Life Milestones
Newborn photos taken while they are still this small
Curled, folded, impossibly light and asleep through almost all of it. That version of your baby lasts about a fortnight. This page is how to photograph it properly, whether we do it or you do it yourself on a phone at four in the morning.
Based in Guelph, ON. Shooting across Southern Ontario. Every fee, including travel and insurance, is discussed and agreed in writing before anything becomes binding.
Placeholder image. Swap this for your own newborn work before the page goes live.
They are this size for about eleven days. That is the whole window.
Everyone tells you it goes fast and you nod politely and file it under things people say. Then you are three weeks in, running on four hours of sleep taken in forty minute pieces, and you scroll back through your camera roll looking for the day you came home. There are two hundred photographs from that week. Almost all of them are blurry, taken from directly above, in the yellow light of a lamp at two in the morning, and in none of them can you see their face properly.
That is not a criticism of you. That is what the first fortnight is. Nobody has both hands free, nobody has slept, and the light in a Canadian house in the middle of the night is the worst light on earth. The photographs are still precious and you should keep every one of them. They just are not the ones you will want on a wall.
A newborn session is one calm block of time, in good light, with somebody else holding the plan while you hold the baby. It is the only stretch of those weeks where the whole point of the room is your child, and where you get to be in the picture instead of behind it.
The reason it is urgent is biology rather than marketing. In roughly the first two weeks a baby still curls into the shape they held inside, sleeps deeply through being moved, and has that specific folded, wrinkled, brand new look. By four weeks the curl has relaxed, the sleep is lighter, and baby acne and cradle cap have often arrived. Nothing is lost at four weeks, it just becomes a different photograph of a different, slightly older person.
If you take one thing from this page: book on your due date, not on your birth date. Everything else on here is easier once that is done.
Thirty minutes to two and a half hours
Sessions run anywhere from 30 to 150 minutes depending on the package you choose. A short one is the baby, one setup and the two of you. A long one leaves room for feeding, changing, settling, siblings, grandparents and a second setup, at whatever pace the baby decides on.
The baby sets the schedule
Nobody is on a clock except your child. We feed when they are hungry, stop when they need stopping, and photograph in the gaps. Half of a good newborn session is waiting well. That is not wasted time, it is the reason the photographs look peaceful instead of managed.
Scale, and the people holding them
Two things stop being true almost immediately: how small they were, and how new you were at this. So we photograph both. A whole baby in two hands, a face against a shoulder, and you, tired and unstyled and completely in love, in the frame rather than out of it.
Where do newborn sessions actually happen?
Almost always in one of two places: your home, or a studio. Both are good and they produce genuinely different photographs, so it is worth knowing which one you actually want before you book anything.
At home you get your own light, your own bed, the nursery you spent four months getting right, and a baby who never has to leave the house in the first fortnight. You also get whatever your windows give you that day, and a living room that has been colonised by a change table and a mountain of muslins.
In a studio you get a heated room, controlled light regardless of the weather, and every wrap, basket and backdrop already there. You also have to put a nine day old in a car seat and drive somewhere, which for some families is the whole reason they choose home instead.
Here is what each option really looks like. Pick one main setting and one backup, and we will build the session around it.
Your own bed
The main bedroom, a white duvet, and the largest window on that floorThis is the single most useful surface in most Canadian homes for photographing a newborn, and almost nobody expects it. A stripped bed with a plain white or oatmeal duvet cover, pulled close to a big window, gives you a soft, clean, endlessly adjustable set that is already the right height to work at and already somewhere a baby can safely lie flat.
It is also where the parent frames come from. Both of you on your own bed, in a jumper, with a nine day old on a chest, is a warmer and more honest photograph than any studio backdrop will give you, and in ten years it will be the one that reads as home.
All we ask before we arrive is that the bed is stripped to a plain cover and pushed or pulled so one long side faces the window if it does not already. That is the whole preparation.
Mid morning, curtains fully open, overhead lights off. North and east windows are gentlest.
A plain light duvet cover, the room a little warmer than usual, and space on one side to stand.
Parent and baby frames, sibling piles, wrapped sleeping portraits, scale shots.
Strong colour on the walls bouncing onto skin, and a baby never left alone on a bed.
The nursery
The crib, the shelf, the name on the wall, the room that was a study in MarchYou will change this room three times before they are five, so photograph it now. The crib with the sheet you chose, the animal on the shelf that somebody knitted, the height chart nobody has used yet. These frames are quiet and nobody thinks to take them, and they age extraordinarily well.
Nurseries are frequently the smallest and darkest room in the house, which is a real limitation and not a fatal one. We shoot tighter here, use the crib as a frame, and treat it as one set of five or six photographs rather than the main location.
If the room has a blackout blind, open it fully. If it has a colour on the walls that you love, tell us, because strong wall colour reflects onto a baby’s skin and we would rather account for it than fight it later.
Whatever the window gives. Blind fully up, lamp off, door open for spill.
Ten minutes of tidying, and the changing table cleared of everything but one folded cloth.
Detail frames, the crib, the room as it was, siblings peering over a rail.
Small rooms, saturated wall colour, and mobiles casting shadows across a face.
The living room
The sofa, the rug, the patio door, the floor everyone ends up onThe living room is where a family with more than one child actually functions, so it is where the family frames belong. A big sliding door or a bay window makes it the brightest room in most houses, and there is finally enough floor for a three year old to lie down next to a baby without anybody being cropped out.
It is also the room where the session relaxes. Nobody performs on their own sofa. We usually end here, with everybody in a pile, the good camera down and the frames that look like a Tuesday rather than a portrait.
Do not tidy it into a showroom. Clear the sight lines behind the sofa, move the drying rack and the bouncer out of the corner we are shooting into, and leave the rest. A house with a nine day old in it is allowed to look like one.
Whatever hour that window is brightest without direct sun on the sofa.
One clear wall or corner, and the floor in front of the window free.
The whole family, siblings, grandparents, the dog, and the last easy frames.
Televisions, clutter behind heads, and mixed light from a lamp we forgot to turn off.
Our studio
Heated, controlled, and stocked with everything so you carry almost nothingChoose the studio when you want the clean, timeless, neutral look, when your home is dark, or when you simply do not want anybody in your house in the second week. The room is warmed well above normal before you arrive, the light is the same at nine in the morning in February as it is in July, and every wrap, bonnet, basket and backdrop is already there.
The trade is the journey. Getting a newborn dressed, fed and into a car seat is a real piece of work, and the first outing frequently takes longer than anyone plans for. Build in an extra half hour, feed them just before you leave rather than at home an hour earlier, and expect to feed again on arrival.
Bring the car seat in with you, bring more nappies than you think, and bring a change of clothes for yourself as well as for the baby. Everyone who has done this once knows why.
Ours, and it does not change. Weather and season stop mattering entirely.
You, the baby, nappies, wipes, a spare outfit, and anything sentimental you want in frame.
Neutral wrapped portraits, controlled sets, winter babies, and dark homes.
The travel time, and a baby who wakes properly in the car and needs settling again.
The feeding chair
The armchair, the glider, the corner of the sofa with the lamp beside itWhatever chair you feed in is about to become the most used piece of furniture you own, and in six months you will not be able to look at it without feeling something. It is worth five frames.
This is also where the honest feeding photographs come from, if you want them. Breast, bottle, tube, however this is going for you, it can be photographed carefully and respectfully and plenty of parents are very glad afterwards that somebody did. It is entirely your call and we will not raise it again if the answer is no.
Put the chair near the window if it is not already, take the muslin off the back of it, and leave everything else exactly as it is.
Window at your side rather than behind you. Lamp off, even if it is the cosy one.
Nothing. This is the one set that needs no preparation at all.
Feeding frames, hands, the quiet parent portraits, a sleeping baby on a chest.
Nothing beyond your own comfort. Say stop at any point and we stop.
Fresh 48 at the hospital
A short documentary session in the first two days, in the room you are inA Fresh 48 is not a birth session. We arrive after the birth, usually somewhere between twelve and forty eight hours later, and photograph what is already happening: the bracelet, the cot card with a weight on it, the first bath, a grandparent arriving, the two of you looking at each other like you have both been hit by a bus in the nicest possible way.
These photographs look nothing like the ones taken a week later, and that is the point. Faces are still swollen, hair is unwashed, the light is hospital light, and it is all completely, unrepeatably true.
Every hospital in Southern Ontario sets its own rules on visitors and photography, and those rules change. Check with your unit while you are still pregnant, tell us what they said, and we will work inside it. If they say no, we shift to a session at home on day two or three instead and nothing is lost.
The window, whatever it is. Overheads off wherever staff allow it.
Your unit’s permission, a text when you are ready, and about forty minutes.
The details, the first hours, siblings meeting the baby, the going home outfit.
Hospital policy, your own recovery, and how you feel on the day. Cancelling is fine.
Outside, briefly
The porch, the back garden, the front step of the house you brought them home toOutdoor newborn frames are lovely and they are always short. A wrapped baby held by a parent, on a shaded porch, in warm weather, for five or ten minutes at the end of the session. Never unwrapped, never lying on the ground, never in direct sun, and never in a Southern Ontario winter.
The frame most people are really after is the house itself: the two of you on the front step of the place you carried them into. That takes three minutes, works in any season if everyone is dressed for it, and becomes far more meaningful the day you eventually move.
Newborns cannot regulate their own temperature, so outdoor time is measured in minutes and the baby goes straight back in afterwards. If it is under about fifteen degrees or windy, we do the step frame in coats and skip the rest.
Open shade only. A porch roof, the north side of the house, or full cloud.
Five to ten minutes, a wrap, and somebody holding the baby the entire time.
The front step, the garden in June, and one green frame in an otherwise indoor set.
Wind, cold, direct sun on skin, insects, and going on longer than planned.
How to choose, without overthinking it
Find your brightest room first
Walk the house at ten in the morning with the lights off and see which room you can read a book in comfortably. That room is your session, whatever it is used for the rest of the time.
Home if there is a sibling
A toddler at home has toys, a nap, a snack and a bolt hole. The same toddler in a studio has none of those and a forty minute attention budget that starts running in the car.
Studio if your home is dark
North facing, heavily treed, basement apartment, or a January where the sun never really shows up. There is no shame in it and the results are frequently better.
Two settings, not five
The bed and the living room, or the studio and one wrapped set. Every extra room costs fifteen minutes of moving and resettling that could have been spent photographing.
Do not deep clean the house
Clear one corner and one bed. That is genuinely it. Nobody has ever looked at their newborn gallery and thought about the state of the kitchen.
Decide the backup when you book
If the weather, a sibling’s fever or a bad night changes the plan, we already know where we are moving to. Deciding on the morning is how sessions get lost.
Send us a photo of your room, taken on your phone at the hour you want the session. Lights off, curtains open, from the doorway. Thirty seconds of your time tells us which window we are working with, which direction it faces and whether we need to bring extra light, and it is far more useful than any description. We are also building a full Photoshoot Locations guide for Southern Ontario, with notes on light, parking and the best hour for each spot.
The window, and what happens on either side of it
This is the one genuinely time sensitive session we shoot, so it is worth two minutes of proper attention. Three windows exist, they produce three different sets of photographs, and there is no wrong answer among them.
The practical part first. Book on your due date, not on your birth date, and treat the booking as a rough position in the calendar rather than an appointment. Babies arrive when they arrive. We hold a flexible slot around your date, you message us when you are home and everyone is stable, and we set the actual day from there, usually with two or three days of notice.
The first 48 hours
Documentary, in hospital or at home on day twoNothing is styled and nothing is arranged. The bracelet still on a wrist, the cot card, the first bath, the hat somebody knitted, the moment a sibling walks in and does not know what to do with their hands. It is closer to reportage than portraiture and it is the only version of this session that captures the actual first day.
It is also the version with the most variables. Births run long, recovery is unpredictable, hospitals set their own visitor and photography rules, and you may simply not want anyone there. All of that is completely reasonable. We keep it loose, you text us when you are ready, and if the answer turns out to be no then we see you at home a week later instead.
Almost nobody regrets these photographs. A meaningful number of people regret not having them, which is the only reason we mention it while there is still time to decide.
Raw, quiet, unedited. The truest version of the whole thing.
The hospital details, the first hours, and faces before anyone has slept.
Your hospital’s photography and visitor policy, while you are still pregnant.
The second trimester, so the slot is held. Confirmed by text on the day.
Days 5 to 14
The classic newborn window, and the one we recommend to most familiesThere is a real reason this window exists. In the first fortnight a baby still holds the curled position they were in before birth, sleeps deeply enough to be moved between setups without waking properly, and has that specific brand new appearance that goes away without anybody noticing it leaving.
Day five to day ten is the sweet spot in practice. Before day four, feeding is often still being established and milk has usually just come in, which makes for a hungry and unsettled baby and a parent who has not slept at all. After about day fourteen the deep sleep begins to shorten and the curl relaxes, which changes what is possible rather than ruining it.
Two honest caveats. First, jaundice frequently peaks around day three to five, and while it is completely normal and manageable in editing, a heavily jaundiced baby is a slightly yellow baby in a photograph. Second, none of this is a rule. Plenty of eighteen day old babies sleep like the textbook and plenty of eight day olds have opinions. We work with the baby in front of us.
Calm and slow. A quiet morning with a warm room and no schedule.
The curl, the deep sleep, the wrinkles, the scale, and settled parents.
How feeding is going. If it is still hard on day five, we move to day nine.
Your due date, held flexibly. Confirmed once you are home and settled.
Three weeks and beyond
For anyone who missed the window, and for anyone who never wanted the curlIf you are reading this at four weeks with a baby who never sleeps and a strong feeling that you have already missed something: you have not. You have missed one specific look. What you have instead is a baby who opens their eyes and looks at people, and a family who has begun to figure out what they are doing.
Sessions after three weeks are lifestyle sessions rather than posed ones. Awake, held, in arms, on a bed, in a chair, at home, with a parent’s hand supporting a head that is not steady yet. They are warmer and less formal and a good number of families prefer them once they see both side by side.
This is also the answer for a NICU stay, a difficult birth, a hard recovery, a baby who came home late, or a family who simply could not think about photographs in week two. Nobody needs to explain themselves. The photographs are just as good, they are just of a slightly older person.
Livelier, more interactive, more like the family you are turning into.
Open eyes, first expressions, held and awake portraits, real interaction.
Nothing. Message us whenever you feel ready, even if that is at eight weeks.
Whenever suits. These sessions are far easier to schedule than the early ones.
Book on the due date. Confirm the day once you are home.
Every newborn booking we take is held loosely on purpose, because no baby has ever consulted a calendar. You send one message when you are home and feeding is going, and we set the day from there. If they come three weeks early, or eleven days late, or you spend a week in hospital, the slot moves with you and it does not cost anything to move it.
The part of this page you should read even if you hire nobody
Newborn photography is the one genre where the photographer is physically handling a days old human being, and it is almost entirely unregulated. Anybody can buy a camera and a basket and start next week. That is worth knowing before you choose someone, and it is worth knowing before you try some of these setups yourself at home.
Here is how a session should be run. Use it as a checklist for us, for anybody else you are considering, and for your own phone photos in the middle of the night.
Some famous poses are composites
The one where a baby appears to rest their chin on their own hands, and the one where a baby appears to be suspended in a hanging hammock, are not single photographs. They are two or more frames blended afterwards, and in every single frame an adult has hands on the baby.
Any photographer who tells you otherwise, or who attempts either of them without a spotter, is telling you something important about the rest of their practice. Please do not attempt these at home under any circumstances.
A spotter within arm’s reach
For any setup where a baby is on a raised surface, in a bowl, on a beanbag or in a prop, an adult keeps a hand on or immediately beside them for the entire time. Usually that adult is you, standing just outside the frame, and your hand gets edited out afterwards.
If you are ever asked to step away from a propped or elevated setup so the photographer can get a cleaner frame, that is the moment to say no.
Baby led, never forced
If a baby does not settle into a position within a few seconds, that position is not happening today and we move on. Limbs are never pushed, heads are never turned further than they go, and nothing is held in place. A newborn cannot tell you their arm hurts, so the answer is to never find out.
Plenty of babies simply do not want to be curled up. Those sessions are still full of photographs, they are just photographs of a baby held, wrapped and in arms.
Nothing heavy, nothing above
No object is balanced above a baby, ever. Anything a baby is placed in sits on the floor or on a surface it cannot tip from, and is weighted or braced from behind. Wooden crates, metal buckets, ladders and swings are exactly as unforgiving as they look.
Props that involve suspension, height or anything a sibling might knock into are declined outright, however good the picture would have been.
Hands, nails and health
Hands washed on arrival and between setups, nails short and filed, no jewellery on the hands or wrists, no perfume or cologne, and no smoking before a session. Everything that touches your baby is freshly laundered on a hot wash between families.
If anyone in either household is unwell, including a cold, we move the session and there is no fee for doing so. Two weeks old is not the age to be brave about a sniffle.
Airway, warmth and skin
Chins stay off chests so the airway stays open, wraps stay snug at the body and loose at the hips, and nothing goes near a neck. The room is warm rather than hot, and skin is watched constantly, because a baby who is too warm goes red and blotchy long before anyone would describe them as uncomfortable.
Nappies stay on right up until the last moment before a bare skin frame, and there is always a waterproof layer under everything. Always.
Three questions to ask any newborn photographer before you book. Which of these poses are composites and how do you shoot them. Who spots the baby, and what happens if I need to step in. What is your policy if my baby, my toddler or one of you is unwell on the day. A confident, specific, unbothered answer to all three tells you more than any portfolio does. Vagueness on any of them is your answer.
How a session actually runs
People imagine a newborn session as a sequence of photographs with a bit of waiting in between. It is closer to the opposite. Most of the time is spent feeding, winding, settling and warming, and the photographs happen in the pockets between those things. Once you know that, nothing about the session feels like it is going wrong.
Here is the whole rhythm, in the order it usually happens, so you can plan the morning around it or run the same sequence yourself with a phone.
What happens, and roughly when
- We arrive, wash hands, and spend the first ten minutes talking rather than shooting while the room warms up.
- You do a full feed. Not a top up, a proper one. This is the single most important twenty minutes of the session.
- Wind them properly, twice. A trapped bubble is the most common reason a settled baby wakes up eight minutes later.
- Nappy change, then straight into the first wrap while they are drowsy and warm.
- Sleeping and wrapped frames first, while the deep sleep is available.
- Parents and siblings next, because they can be photographed awake.
- Top up feed whenever it is needed. There is no schedule that outranks a hungry baby.
- Details last: hands, feet, eyelashes, the curl of an ear, whatever the room gives us.
What settles a newborn, in order of power
- Full stomach. Nothing else on this list works on a hungry baby. Nothing.
- Warmth. The room sits around 24 to 26 degrees, which will feel too warm for you and is correct for them.
- Sound. Constant white noise, loud enough to cover a doorbell. A phone app, a fan, a hairdryer in the next room.
- Snugness. A firm wrap recreates the only environment they have ever known. Snug at the body, loose at the hips.
- Motion. A slow steady sway, or a hand resting with light pressure. Small and boring beats big and rhythmic.
- Patience. Two quiet minutes of nothing settles more babies than any technique on this list.
Turn the heat up before we arrive
An hour ahead, not when we get there. Rooms take a long time to actually warm and a baby will not settle in a room that is comfortable for adults in jumpers. Bring a t shirt to change into, because you will be too hot.
Do not keep them awake beforehand
Old advice, and it backfires. An overtired newborn is far harder to settle than a well rested one. Feed and behave completely normally on the morning of the session and let them do whatever they were going to do.
White noise from the start
Not once they are unsettled. From the moment we begin, continuously, at a genuinely loud volume. A womb is roughly as loud as a vacuum cleaner, so silence is the unusual environment, not the noise.
Feeding is not an interruption
It is built into the length of the session. Feed for as long as it takes, as many times as it takes, and never rush it because a camera is in the room. Sessions that run long almost always run long for this reason and that is completely fine.
Dress them in something loose
Whatever they are in when we start should come off easily without going over the head. A front opening sleepsuit, or nothing but a nappy under a blanket. Elastic leaves marks on new skin that take twenty minutes to fade.
Have somebody else make the coffee
A grandparent, a friend, anyone. Your job for the whole session is to feed, hold and be photographed. Somebody else answers the door, watches the toddler and boils the kettle.
A crying baby is not a failed session. It is the middle of one.
Every newborn cries at some point during a session and every experienced photographer expects it. We stop, you feed or hold them, the room goes quiet, and ten minutes later we carry on. The only thing that genuinely damages a session is a parent who feels responsible for making the baby behave. Please do not be that. Sit down, feed them, and let the clock do whatever it does.
Everybody else in the house
The photograph most families ask for first is the sibling one, and it is also the hardest thing in the session. A two year old who has just had their entire world rearranged by a small loud stranger is not naturally inclined to sit still and look fond about it.
So we plan it properly rather than hoping. Siblings first, while the goodwill is fresh, then release them entirely. Nobody gets asked to perform twice.
Fastest first, then let people go
- Siblings with the baby, in the first fifteen minutes, before anyone is bored.
- Siblings alone, immediately after, while they are already in front of a camera.
- The whole family, everybody, one setup, five minutes.
- Each parent with the baby, separately. Both of you get your own frames.
- Grandparents and anyone who has travelled, next, then they can go and hold the baby off camera.
- The baby alone, wrapped and sleeping, once the house has gone quiet again.
- Details and the dog, last, in whatever time is left.
Six things that decide how this goes
- Never ask a toddler to hold the baby unsupported. They sit, we place the baby in their lap, and an adult hand stays in the frame.
- Ask them to kiss the baby’s head rather than to smile. A real action produces a real expression; the word smile produces the other thing.
- Have a snack and a favourite thing ready and out of sight. Both are currency and both work exactly once.
- Let them show us something of theirs first. Thirty seconds of attention buys about ten minutes of cooperation.
- If it goes wrong, we stop and come back to it later. A forced sibling frame is visible in the photograph forever.
- Tell us about anything difficult beforehand: a hard adjustment, additional needs, a separation, someone who is not coming.
Both parents, individually
The parent who did not give birth is missing from an astonishing proportion of newborn galleries, and so, very often, is the one who did. We photograph each of you alone with the baby, deliberately, every time. Ten years from now that is the frame.
You do not need to look ready
You are days postpartum. You will not look like yourself and you are not supposed to. We shoot from angles that are kind, we keep you close to the baby, and every single client says afterwards that they are glad they did it anyway.
Grandparents, early
Especially anyone who has flown in, anyone unwell, or anyone who does not live nearby. Photograph them in the first half hour and then let them sit down with the baby and enjoy it for the rest of the visit.
The dog gets one frame
They were the baby until eleven days ago and they know something has happened. One calm frame, on a lead or a lap, with an adult between the dog and the baby, and then somebody takes them out for a walk.
Twins take longer
Two babies is more than twice the work: two feeds, two settles, and a set of frames where both are asleep at once, which is a genuine act of patience. Book the longest session you can and expect the whole thing to run at half speed.
Somebody who is not here
A photograph, a ring, a blanket somebody knitted, a name. Tell us before we start and we will find a quiet way to include it rather than a staged one. Those frames matter more than any other frame in the gallery.
The same baby, four very different rooms
You do not get to choose the season a baby is born into, so this section is not about picking one. It is about knowing what your particular month is going to hand you, because a Southern Ontario January and a Southern Ontario July are two completely different photographic problems inside the same house.
The variables that actually change are daylight hours, the direction and hardness of the sun through your windows, how hard it is to keep a room warm, and how many people are allowed to visit a two week old that month.
Spring
March to MayThe easiest season for this by a clear margin. Daylight is long enough to give us a wide choice of hours, the sun is high enough to be soft through a window without being brutal, and the house is not fighting either the furnace or the humidity. If your due date lands here, you have won a small lottery.
The one thing to watch is the weather flipping three times in a week. A grey day is a gift for us and a bright one is workable, but a spring house that has switched the heating off can be colder than it feels to an adult. Check the room, not the thermostat, and warm it early.
Generous. Mid morning or mid afternoon both work, and grey days are perfect.
Turn the heating back on an hour ahead even if it feels excessive outside.
One frame on the front step in the green, wrapped, at the very end.
Cold snaps, mud at the door, and green light bouncing in off new leaves.
Summer
June to AugustAll the light in the world and most of it too hard. A July sun through an uncovered south or west window at two in the afternoon is a stripe of pure white across a duvet and no help to anybody. The fix is simple: a sheer curtain, a blind at half mast, or moving to a window that faces north or east.
Heat is the real consideration. A warm room is required for settling, and a July bedroom in Southern Ontario is already there without any assistance, so summer is the one season where we sometimes need the room cooler rather than warmer. An overheated baby goes red and blotchy quickly, so we watch skin constantly and use fewer layers.
Summer is also the best season for the short outdoor frames: a shaded porch at nine in the morning, everyone in linen, a wrapped baby in arms for six minutes and then back inside.
Abundant and hard. Early morning is the best hour, and sheers are your friend.
Usually already warm enough. Watch for overheating rather than cold.
A shaded porch or garden frame at the end, wrapped and held, ten minutes maximum.
Hard sun stripes, red blotchy skin, air conditioning blowing straight at the set.
Fall
September to NovemberQuietly the best looking season for newborns indoors. The sun sits lower, so it reaches further into a room and arrives with warmth already in it, and knitted textures and heavier wraps suddenly look right instead of costumed. Grey October days give the softest, most even light of the whole year.
The catch is the daylight leaving. By early November the good window shrinks noticeably and by the end of the month a late afternoon session is not really possible. We move fall sessions earlier as the season goes on, usually landing somewhere between nine thirty and one.
It is also the start of the season where people around you get sick. Be firm with visitors, and tell us the moment anybody in the house has a cold, because moving a session is free and easy and always the right call.
Low, warm and reaching deep into rooms. Grey days are the softest of the year.
Heating on an hour ahead. Older houses cool faster than anyone expects.
Chunky knits, wool, heavier wraps, and deeper tones that suit the season.
Daylight shrinking week by week, and cold and flu season starting up.
Winter
December to FebruaryEveryone assumes winter is the difficult one and it is more mixed than that. Yes, the daylight window is short: usable light in a house runs roughly from ten in the morning until three in the afternoon in January, and we book firmly inside that. But fresh snow on the ground outside a window is one of the best light sources available anywhere, bouncing clean, soft, even light straight up into a room for free.
Warmth takes real effort. Space heaters near the set, radiators on, the room shut for an hour beforehand, and everybody in the house too warm. Bring something short sleeved to change into. Cold is the single most common reason a winter session stalls.
Winter is also RSV and flu season, which matters more for a two week old than for anyone else in the house. Fewer visitors, everyone washing hands at the door, and an absolutely no questions asked policy on rescheduling if anybody is ill.
Short but excellent. Roughly ten in the morning to three, and snow doubles it.
The main job of the day. Heat the room for an hour, keep a heater near the set.
Set up beside a window with snow outside it. It is the best free light of the year.
Illness in the house, boots and salt at the door, and a room that never warms up.
Nobody is going to bend your baby into a shape
Newborn posing has a reputation problem, and it is partly deserved. Search the phrase and you get a wall of babies arranged into positions that look impressive and, in a few cases, are not safe to attempt at all. What actually happens in a good session is far calmer than that.
We offer a position, the baby either settles into it or does not, and we photograph whichever way it goes. Everything below is baby led. Scroll on, and the three rows will move with you.
Placeholder frames. Replace with your own newborn work before launch.
Posed, or lifestyle
Posed means wraps, a neutral backdrop, curled sleeping positions and controlled light. Clean, timeless, and the closest thing to the images most people picture when they hear the words newborn photography. It needs a deeply asleep baby and it takes longer.
Lifestyle means your home, your bed, your arms, and whatever is happening. Awake or asleep, feeding, being passed around, siblings climbing on somebody. Faster, warmer, more honest, and far more forgiving of a baby with opinions.
Most of our sessions are a mix, weighted toward whichever one you tell us you want. You do not have to choose one and stay there.
What we actually work through
- Wrapped and asleep, two or three wraps, one setup.
- Unwrapped on a soft surface, if they will settle. If not, we move on and nobody minds.
- Scale frames: a whole baby in two hands, or against a parent’s forearm.
- Details: fingers, toes, eyelashes, hair, the curl of an ear, the cord stump if it is still there.
- Each parent alone with the baby, standing near the window, looking down rather than at us.
- Siblings, seated, with the baby placed in a lap and a hand always in support.
- Anything of yours that matters: a blanket, a hat, a ring, a book, a name.
If your baby spends the entire session awake, hungry and furious, you have not wasted anything. Some of the best newborn galleries we have delivered came out of exactly that morning: a red faced baby mid protest, a parent laughing helplessly, a sibling covering their ears. That is what week two was actually like, and in five years it will make you laugh harder than any sleeping frame in the set.
Dress the room, not the baby
Newborns look best in almost nothing: a wrap, a plain sleepsuit, a nappy under a blanket. It is the adults in the frame who need a plan, and almost nobody expects that, so this section is mostly about you.
One principle covers everything. The baby is the brightest, softest, most detailed thing in the photograph, and everything else in it should get out of the way. Quiet colours, simple shapes, no busy patterns anywhere near a face.
Cream, oat, soft white, warm grey, sage, olive, dusty blue, charcoal and honest denim all work beautifully together and none of them fight. If everyone in the house picks something from that list, the whole gallery will look like it was planned by somebody with taste.
For the baby
- Less is genuinely more. A wrap, a plain knit romper, a simple sleepsuit, or a nappy under a blanket.
- Nothing with a slogan, a cartoon, a large bow or a headband that leaves a mark. These date a photograph instantly.
- Front opening everything. Nothing that has to go over a head, because that wakes a settled baby every time.
- Size up rather than down. A slightly loose newborn size photographs better than something tight at the arms.
- Wash anything new before the session. New fabric can irritate skin and the creases never fully drop out.
- Bring the sentimental items: the blanket somebody knitted, the hat, a christening gown, a family shawl. We will build frames for them.
- Keep the nappy on until the last possible second, and always have a waterproof layer underneath.
- Cut and file their nails or keep scratch mitts to hand. Fresh scratches are visible and they take editing time.
For the grown ups
- Comfort first, and by a long way. You are days postpartum, you will be sitting, kneeling and holding, and stiff clothing shows.
- Solid colours in the soft palette above. One texture is plenty: ribbed knit, linen, soft cotton, good denim.
- Anything that works for feeding, if you are feeding. Do not put yourself in something you have to fight with.
- Sleeves you can push up. Forearms and hands are in almost every frame in this session.
- Coordinate loosely, never match. Same family of colours, different pieces. Matching outfits read as a costume.
- Bare feet or plain socks. Shoes almost never appear and they look strange on a bed.
- Have a second top within reach. Something will land on the first one. This is not a maybe.
- Wear what you would wear on a good slow morning at home, because that is exactly what we are photographing.
What to skip
- Bright saturated colour, especially red and neon. It reflects straight onto new skin and it is very hard to remove.
- Tight repeating patterns, thin stripes and small checks. They shimmer on camera and they pull the eye off the baby.
- Large logos and graphics. They date the photograph to the exact year, and this one is meant to last.
- Anything scratchy or heavily sequinned next to a newborn’s face.
- Strong perfume or aftershave. Newborns are sensitive to it and so are some siblings.
- New shoes, new anything. Today is not the day to discover something does not fit.
What to bring, and what to leave
Bring anything that means something: a blanket from a grandparent, the hat from the hospital, a book somebody inscribed, a piece of jewellery, a flag, a shawl, the ultrasound photo. Objects with a story in them outlast every prop ever bought.
Leave the elaborate setups. Baskets, buckets, crates and wooden props are available, we use them sparingly, and only where they can sit flat and braced. If a prop cannot be made safe, we skip it and the gallery does not suffer for it.
Ignore any of this that does not suit you. Some of the best newborn sessions we have shot were a family in matching pyjamas at ten in the morning, a mother in the dressing gown she had lived in for nine days, a father in his work shirt on a lunch break, and a baby in nothing but a nappy the entire time. Wear what you would actually be wearing. That reads in a photograph and nothing else does.
One window, and the hour it is kindest
Almost every newborn photograph worth keeping is lit by a single window with the ceiling lights switched off. That is the entire technique, and it is the one thing on this page that will improve your own phone photos tonight.
The reason ordinary baby photos look yellow and muddy is that they are lit by a ceiling light or a lamp, from above and behind, in a dim room, at three in the morning. The reason ours do not is that we book the hour, kill every artificial light in the room, and put the baby side on to the biggest piece of glass in the house.
Here is what each hour and each kind of weather actually gives you indoors, and how we work with it.
Mid morning
Roughly nine thirty to twelve, and the hour we book by defaultThis is the answer for almost every newborn session in Southern Ontario. The sun is high enough to have stopped raking straight through a window, the light is clean and bright without being hard, and it is the same in most months of the year.
It also happens to be the best hour for the humans. Everybody has been up for a while but nobody has hit the afternoon wall, babies are frequently at their sleepiest after a morning feed, and a toddler at ten in the morning is a completely different animal from the same toddler at four in the afternoon.
We set up side on to the largest window with the light coming across the baby rather than down at them, turn everything else off, and work from there.
Clean, bright, calm. The look most people mean by natural light.
Side light across the face, white bounce on the shadow side, everything else off.
Everything. Wrapped portraits, parents, siblings and details all work in this hour.
Midday
Bright, high and easy to fixIndoors, midday is much less of a problem than it is outside. High sun rarely reaches deep into a room, so what you usually get is plenty of soft bounced light and one hard patch on the floor to stay out of.
The one situation to manage is direct sun landing on the set through a south or west facing window, which puts a stripe of blown out white across a duvet and a baby. A sheer curtain solves it completely and turns that window into a very large softbox.
Bright and airy. Slightly more contrast than the morning.
Through a sheer, or in the second window in the house that is not in direct sun.
Winter sessions, dark homes, and any house with only small windows.
Overcast
A softbox the size of the skyA flat grey Ontario day is the best possible weather for a newborn session and we never reschedule for it. Cloud turns the entire sky into one enormous diffuser, so the light through your window becomes even, gentle and completely predictable for hours at a stretch.
New skin is blotchy, mottled and frequently a bit red or yellow, which is entirely normal and which hard light makes worse. Soft even light is the single kindest thing you can put a days old baby in.
The only adjustment is quantity. Grey days are dimmer, so we work closer to the window and, in a genuinely dark room, add one soft light of our own aimed to imitate the window rather than fight it.
Soft, even, quiet. The most flattering light available to a newborn.
Right up against the window, wide apertures, one added light only if needed.
Skin, detail frames, and anyone worried about how new skin looks.
Late afternoon
Warm, low and directionalLate light comes in sideways, low and warm, and it reaches much further into a room than midday light does. It is the most atmospheric hour available indoors and it produces the golden, hazy frames people fall in love with on other people’s galleries.
Two honest cautions. It is a short window and it moves quickly, so we work fast in it and treat it as a bonus set rather than the backbone of the session. And late afternoon is the hardest hour of the day for a toddler and for a parent running on no sleep, which frequently matters more than the light does.
Warm, golden, cinematic. The frames that look unlike everybody else’s.
Backlight through the window, deliberate haze, tighter crops, long lens.
Parent and baby frames, and one or two hero images at the end of a session.
Short winter days
Roughly ten in the morning to three in the afternoon in JanuaryIn deep winter the usable indoor light in a Southern Ontario house runs from about ten in the morning until about three in the afternoon, and it collapses quickly after that. We book firmly inside that window and we start on time, because a session that begins forty minutes late in January genuinely loses frames.
What winter gives back is snow. Fresh snow outside a window is a huge white reflector throwing clean, soft, even light upward into a room, and it makes a January session look better than a June one. When it has just snowed, we are keen.
We also bring our own soft light to every winter session as a matter of course, set to match the window so nobody could tell you which is which.
Cool, clean and bright. Snow light is unusually flattering.
Close to the window, with one soft light matched to it, and we start on time.
Winter babies, and anyone who thinks their house is too dark to bother.
Lamps and overheads
The single biggest fixable problem in ordinary baby photosTurn them off. All of them. This is the one piece of advice on this page that will improve your own photographs tonight, at no cost, with no equipment.
Household bulbs are a completely different colour from daylight, so when both are in a room at once the camera cannot correct for either and you get orange skin with grey shadows on it. A ceiling light also comes from directly above, which puts shadows into eye sockets and under a chin, which is the least flattering angle that exists for anybody of any age.
One window, no lamps, baby side on to the glass. That is the whole recipe, and it works on a phone as well as it works on anything we own. If you are photographing at night and there is genuinely no daylight, go and stand next to the brightest lamp in the house, turn the rest off, and put the baby side on to that instead. One source of light, whatever it is, always beats four.
Orange, muddy and flat. The look of every phone photo taken at 3am.
Never in mixed light. Every artificial light in the room goes off first.
One light source, baby turned side on to it, camera at their level. That is it.
Book the hour first. Then choose the room that hour is kind to.
Usable indoor daylight in Southern Ontario swings by several hours between June and December, so the same session starts comfortably at four in the afternoon in July and must be finished by three in January. Tell us your month and which way your best window faces, and we will tell you the hour we want.
You are letting this person hold your baby
That sentence is the whole reason this section exists. For every other kind of session, choosing a photographer is a question of taste and budget. For this one it is also a question of who is in your house, in your bedroom, near a nine day old, in a week when you are more tired and more exposed than you have ever been.
So look at the work properly, and then look at the person. A full gallery from one newborn session, start to finish, tells you far more than a grid of greatest hits. You are looking for whether the whole set holds together and whether the babies in it look comfortable, not just whether four frames are beautiful.
Then ask the safety questions from earlier on this page. Composites, spotting, illness policy. Anybody good will answer all three in about thirty seconds without getting defensive, because they have thought about it more than you have.
At Sunday Media you are working with a small team of seasoned photographers, which is deliberate. Small means the person you speak to is the person who comes to your house, they remember your due date, and they have sat in enough Southern Ontario living rooms in February to know what to do with a dark one.
A photo of your room
Taken on your phone, at the hour you want the session, lights off and curtains open. Also your due date, who will be there, whether there is a sibling or a dog, and any objects you want photographed. That is genuinely all the preparation we need from you.
What you are worried about
Feeding is hard, the birth was hard, you do not want to be in any photographs, you hate photographs of yourself, a sibling is struggling, someone is missing. Say it early. It changes how the whole session is planned rather than being managed on the day.
The questions worth asking
- Which poses in your portfolio are composites, and how do you shoot them.
- Who spots the baby, and what do you need from me during the session.
- What happens if my baby, my toddler or one of you is unwell on the day.
- What if the baby comes three weeks early, or two weeks late.
- Can I see one complete newborn gallery from start to finish.
- When do sneak peeks and the full gallery arrive.
The night before
You are not going to do all of this and nobody expects you to. Do the first three, ignore anything that feels like too much, and go to bed. A newborn session needs less preparation than any other kind of shoot we do, which is the entire point of it.
The night before
The day of
There is only one piece of timing that matters, and it is the feed. Everything else on this list is optional comfort.
Session day checklist
Go back to bed. We will take it from here.
The room is too hot, there is a wrap on the floor, somebody has eaten all the biscuits and you have been holding a baby for two hours. That is a successful session. Put the heating back down, get everyone a nap, and let the rest of the day be nothing.
Then keep an eye on your email and whichever channel we have been messaging you on. Your photographer will be in touch, and the first thing to arrive is always the fun one.
Sneak peeks
A small handful of edited frames from the session, sent straight to you. Enough to send to the family group chat, enough to announce with if you are announcing, and enough to hold everyone over while the rest is worked on properly.
The full gallery
The complete edited set, delivered to your private gallery on our website. Exact timing varies with the package you booked and the season, and your photographer will tell you the date to expect.
Your access code
A private code arrives with the delivery message. It is the key to your gallery, so treat it like a house key rather than a hashtag, even when nine relatives ask for it in the same afternoon.
How to open your photos
Your gallery is private and it lives on our website. Everything you need is in the delivery message: a link, and an access code that looks something like this.
Please do not share your access code with anyone.
These are photographs of a newborn child, so this matters more here than anywhere else on our site. The code is the only thing standing between your baby’s gallery and wherever it gets forwarded to next. If you want family to see the gallery, tell us and we will arrange proper sharing. If you think the code has gone somewhere it should not have, message us and we will reset it the same day.
Fun tutorial: take our easy to use gallery for a spin before your own photos arrive. It is built in house, and the code above is a working demo key. Tap the access code to copy it, then use it on the Your Gallery page.
Go to our website
Open sundaymedia.ca on any device. Phone is fine for looking, a laptop is better for downloading.
Open the menu and choose My Gallery
It is in the main navigation at the top of every page.
Type in your access code
Exactly as it was sent, capitals included. That opens your session and nobody else’s.
Download, request edits, or order an album
Inside the gallery you can download the full resolution files, ask for edits on specific frames, and request a printed album made from the set. If something is missing or a file will not open, message us and we will sort it out.
You have read the whole thing, on no sleep. That probably means you have already decided.
Tell us your due date and roughly which room gets the best light, and we will hold a flexible slot around it. You message us when you are home, we set the day from there, and the only thing left for you to do is feed your baby.
Every fee is discussed before payment. Travel and insurance costs are agreed in writing before the binding contract, so nothing on your invoice is ever a surprise. Rescheduling for illness or for a baby who arrives on their own timetable never costs anything.
NewbornNewbornNice one. Want this list to go?
You just checked your first box. We can hand you the whole list as a file, so it lives on your phone instead of in a browser tab you will lose before Thursday.