The first two years produce more “we have to get this photographed” moments than any other stretch of a family’s life, and most of them happen on a short, non-negotiable clock. A newborn only curls like a newborn for about two weeks. A naming or blessing ceremony happens on the day it happens. A first birthday is exactly one day, once. I photograph all of it, and I photograph it the way it actually happens rather than staging a version of it afterwards.
Newborn, in your home
We book a window, not a day. You give me the due date, I hold flexible slots on either side of it, and we fix the actual session once the baby arrives — ideally between five and fourteen days old, with seven to ten the sweet spot. I come to you rather than the other way around, because nobody should be loading a nine-day-old into a car to keep an appointment, and the photographs made in your own bed, your own window, the chair you have been feeding in at four in the morning, are the ones you will want to remember. No props, no hanging poses, no hammocks — those are composites, and they are not what I do. A parent is within arm’s reach of the baby in every frame, and if the baby is unhappy we stop and wait, however long that takes.
Naming, blessing and first-haircut ceremonies
If your family marks the early months with a ceremony — a naming day, a blessing for a baby on the way, a first haircut — I photograph those properly too, and I will not need the ritual explained to me. That means the naming itself and the whispering of the name; the lap-filling and the blessing, and the mother’s face when her own mother does it; the first cut and the moment afterwards when a toddler looks entirely different and everyone goes quiet for a second. These events are usually indoors with difficult light and a room full of people with opinions. I bring my own lighting, work around whoever is running the ceremony rather than through them, and photograph what actually happens rather than a calmer version of it.
First birthday, six months, and everything between
Six-month sittings, first birthdays and cake smashes are their own kind of chaos, and worth booking properly rather than squeezing into a phone photo. I direct enough that the cake smash actually gets the frame you want, and I get out of the way for the fifteen seconds that matter.
Booking the whole first two years at once
Most families who book one of these end up booking again within the year. The Milestone bundle covers a maternity or blessing session, the newborn session, a milestone ceremony or six-month session, and the first birthday for $575 against $700 booked one at a time, payable in installments — one decision instead of four while you are raising a small child.
What to tell me
For a newborn session, the due date, and get in touch early — the window is measured in days, not weeks. For a ceremony, the date, roughly how many guests, whether it is at home or in a hall, and whether there is a specific ritual sequence I should know, because these vary a great deal by family and tradition and I would rather ask than assume.