This last week I had the opportunity to do my first photoshoot with a newborn baby and man did I have a great time! My good friends Bart and Erin Wiley recently had their first baby Holiday Joan Wiley and asked me if I would photograph Holiday. What a cute baby! Getting asked to do this gave me so much excitement. To have someone trust me to take photographs of their baby which will be looked at years from now is a lot of pressure and having never done this I wanted to make sure I got it right. I decided to scour the internet looking for any ideas I could find on newborn photography. I mainly used it to get some ideas since I had never done this.

I will say that the experience was also quite entertaining. In many newborn pics the baby is naked and while we were setting up for one of the shots Bart was holding Holiday while wearing his nice orange sweater he had worn to work. I think Holiday was a little scared to be placed on the book shelf and decided to poop in dad's arms. And now you know which photos below were after this because Bart is in a white undershirt!

I did learn a few things during the shoot that I thought I'd share:
1. Find out ahead of time what the lighting in the house will be. When I showed up the sun was on the other side of the house and even though it was the middle of the day the house was fairly dark.
2. I need some faster lenses!! If you don't know what I mean by "fast" check out this article: What is a fast lens?
3. With a larger aperture it is crucial to focus on the correct part of the newborn which isn't alway easy as they are moving quite a bit.
4. It's harder to position babies into those cute poses that you always see if they are awake.
5. Cold babies with no diaper = extra laundry for mom and dad

So without further ado I present to you Holiday Joan Wiley! Thanks again Bart and Erin for trusting in me! You have a beautiful baby and I know you will be great parents!

Thanks again to Bart, Erin and Holiday Wiley!

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