Behind the Scenes Peek

I thought I’d share some behind the scenes shots and explain a little bit about how I set up for newborn and studio sessions.  I know a lot of clients are worried that they do not have enough space in their home for me to work in and I hope by sharing some photos of my set ups I can show you how little space I actually need to work in!  Newborn sessions require the least amount of space and I’ve set up in many different types of rooms including bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, and even a hallway.  When I arrive at your home for a newborn session I usually look around your home to gauge which room or space has the best lighting and go from there. Occasionally I may ask permission to move some furniture (dining tables and couches usually!) but not always.  I bring a large bean bag for posing and use either two dining room chairs or my studio background stand behind it depending on how much room there is.  I bring several large totes full of supplies with me full of blankets, wraps, gender appropriate accessories (hats, headbands, etc), extra receiving blankets, and cloth diapers.  I also bring a large round reflector, a space heater, and a few baskets and other props.  I do bring portable lighting equipment that I can use for newborn sessions in case the natural light isn’t going to work so if you don’t have perfect indoor lighting that’s ok.

This first set up is from a newborn session I did with natural window light in a dining room with the dining table pushed back a bit.  The sun was surprisingly bright for a November morning so I actually had to adjust the window shade several times during this session.  The large round white thing is my reflector, and you can see various bags and baskets full of wraps/blankets/cloth diapers that I keep close for posing and clean up.  It’s hard to tell but there are several blankets layered under the gray ruffle fabric which is clamped to the back of two dining room chairs.  Below the pull back photo is a finished image taken a few minutes later using this set up.

The last pull back is from a few weeks ago when I did my children’s Valentines photos in my garage.  I really had my hopes set on outdoor photos with the quilt the heart banner but the weather just wasn’t going to cooperate!  So I pulled the van out of the garage and made do with my studio set up and natural overcast lighting from the open garage door.  You can see my silver backdrop stand and my pink paper backdrop in addition to my fabulous garage in the background.  I didn’t want to tape the heart banner to my paper background so I borrowed some of my daughter’s hair ribbons and tied it to my background stand.  The fake wood floor is paper and I put the quilt on top of the paper and you can see the back of my reflector on the left.  I took this at the end of the photo session which is why my children look so sticky and enthused.