life with a newborn :: oakley

oh, you guys. i am sitting under the weight of no less than seven sets of photos to edit, upload, and blog. it's actually a pretty joyous feeling to know that at any time i have a wide array of photos to work on, since the culling and editing is normally pretty enjoyable to me. i sometimes daydream about stealing moments of time to get into the groove and work through a set. sadly, this doesn't happen as easily as i'd hope. i only have five hours of guaranteed "office time" each week, which really isn't enough. 

but that's a ramble. let me get to the real point, which is this handsome baby boy named oakley.

oakley's mama emily is dear to me. so dear. it was through the stockbridge boiler room that she came into my life and through which we became a part of the same family. there have been so many occasions for celebration: her wedding to james, buying their first home, their pregnancy announcement, her mother blessing ceremony, and then the saturday morning that i got a text message with his incredible little face in it, telling me he had been born. what joy. and to now be able to share the wonderful and challenging world of motherhood with her has me feeling pretty grateful. 

when oakley was just over a week old i headed over to their house one sunny september evening to do a Life With A Newborn session with them. they'll tell you they aren't very comfortable having their photos taken, but you'd never guess, would you? 

enjoy this little snippet of their new life as a family of three (four if you count the dog, gunner). 

pretty stinkin' adorable, aren't they? happiest sigh. 

life with a newborn :: rori

becky is a brand new mama. she is also the best friend of one of my dear clients, jessica, whose maternity, birth, and newborn photo sessions i was lucky enough to do. it's my favorite thing to meet new clients who are friends referred by previous clients because the links that bring us together are friendship, and they've already seen and appreciated something i've done and know they want the same for their own family. so ideal. 

and indeed, becky and mac and rori and rufus (that's the family dog) were as kind and interesting as i would expect them to be based on their connection to jessica and her family. as i photographed them, i listened with high interest to the story of their lakeside home, which they had just moved into after spending years dreaming up and designing together. i love that this was their family project, and that they are now welcoming their newborn daughter into a completely unique, one-of-a-kind, and highly personalized home, where they anticipate growing old together. 

and rori. well.... rori is just fantastic. fresh and wide-eyed and lucky enough to spend much of her time cradled in the arms of two of the most tender parents you can imagine. 

the images toward the end of this session were taken at the lakefront property that's been in mac's family for generations, and which will be a part of rori's childhood "normal" for years to come. i just love that: roots that go deep into history and indefinitely into the future. i also love all rori's facial expressions in that set of images. :)

thank you so much, mac and becky. 

life with a newborn :: sadie

here is a family whose warmth and gentleness overtakes any space in which you encounter them. every time i'm around them or photograph them (which i've had the privilege to do two times before now), i feel like i just want to study them, in order to understand their wonderfulness and take a piece of it home with me. chris and mindy are building something beautiful together. and their newest little one, sadie irene, was just welcomed home into that beauty two weeks ago. in these photos, she is not even two weeks old. 

during this session, i made many other images of their older children playing outside, and mindy fixing her daily cup of coffee, and a few other aspects of their family life. chris and mindy get all of those photos, too. but for the purposes of this post, i'm making it very sadie-centric. :) 

i hope this series of images paints a picture of sadie's embrace into the arms of all of her family members. and her squishy newborn yumminess. 

congrats, you guys! you're officially a party of FIVE!

life with a newborn :: hazel ruth

there are an absurd number of connections between myself and this family! we were set up by their friend, who purchased them a newborn photo session as a baby shower gift. little did she know that we'd have so much in common. like a home birth midwife team, the birth dates of our daughters (3 years and 1 day apart), the NAMES of our daughters, a keen interest in PBS's Call the Midwife, a shared faith, and a slew of mutual friends. hanging out with ray and jerika felt like a reunion with old friends. so easy. 

both of hazel's grandmothers were present for this session, too, as they'd been staying very near at hand in the days following her birth, ready to nurture jerika and lessen her workload as she spent over a week resting in bed on midwife's orders (our midwives did that to me, too :)). God bless the mamas of the mamas. you are needed!

and this baby!... hazel ruth's birth was remarkable: a home breech birth (seriously amazing)! you have to wonder what a beginning like that means for the story her life will tell. and she is so wanted, so adored, so delighted over. many gentle hands cradled and caressed her, as voices spoke truth over her about her belovedness. oh that we could all enter the world so swaddled in intentional love. 

as an aside, i just have to say that i'm loving photographing newborns more and more these days, as i find my stride and style within this category. i'd love to do this for you, or for someone you love (baby shower gift?!). 

happy day, friends. 

life with a newborn :: lillian

birth is untamed and unpredictable. it always is. and sometimes that unpredictability means that i miss a birth (not often). lillian's birth was one of those. but once the dust of the unexpected settled, and her mama was feeling up to it, i came over to photograph them in their home. 

arielle and mike played along with my rather un-posed approach to newborn photography, contented to just gaze googly-eyed at their sweet girl while i snapped away. i'm just a sucker for newborns photographed in their parents' arms, because that's where they normally spend their time, anyway, and it's where they belong. gets the oxytocin flowing! :)

the three cuddled, read books, nursed, and rested together. that's what life with a newborn is all about. and i hope these photos will help them remember this hazy, wonderful season of life. 

lillian is nearly two weeks old at the time these photos were taken. she is adored and adorable, as you will quickly be able to see. 

i have another life-with-a-newborn session to show you soon, so stay tuned!

life with a newborn :: ellison

about 6 weeks ago, i photographed ellison's birth. then my favorite thing happened: her mom and dad also invited me back for a newborn session. i'm always so glad when i get to see the babies whose births i photographed, whether by watching them grow on facebook or photographing them with their families later on. 

here's a few bits of fun background information to flesh out the story these images tell...

• amy created the loveliest, and most unabashedly girly nursery for their sweet girl. so we hung out in there quite a while. the walls were the palest whisper of pink. 
• i got a little carried away when darren leaned over ellison and started tenderly touching and talking to her. absolutely heart-melting. also heart-melting was darren carrying ellison around in his dirt bike shop, talking with her about the adventures they'd have in the future. 
• though i'm not really a pet photographer, darren and amy's pets -- a dog and a cat -- were very present throughout their session, and i think they add something so special. both are protective of the newest member of their family. 
• amy is a dancer and just generally a mover, which has translated into ellison being rather addicted to movement. there was so much swaying and bouncing going on during our session, that my camera's auto-focus was working hard to keep up. :) but i just love that ellison still craves her mama's unique movements, and goes to calm when she's in her arms. 

without further ado, here's ellison at [almost] six weeks old...

also note: this is session is a pretty typical example of how i do newborn sessions. i'm not a baskets/headbands/props/body-wraps/poses kind of photographer. i prefer to keep babies in the spaces they normally occupy, and in the arms that are usually holding them. to me, this seems the more authentic thing, the thing i'd want to catch in a bottle and keep forever. it's what's so sweet about newborn-hood. of course, this is right in line with my family photojournalism practice. :)