Newborn Photography

I'm really lucky that my husband and I have similar ideas on basically everything. For example, for the most part, we both think maternity pictures are creepy. This is great because if he really wanted me to have some taken, I might feel a little annoyed! It's not that I think pregnant women are ugly or unattractive, I just think that most of the poses pregnant women are placed in are creepy and the most of the ideas for maternity shoots are tacky. (With a few exceptions, of course, like this picture).  I don't know why it is so hard to simply take an attractive picture of a pregnant woman which showcases her growing belly without throwing in a creepy husband, photo-shopping a sonogram onto her stomach, or insisting on "tasteful nudity" (which is usually not tasteful). Please, stop being so weird, people.

On the other hand, we both place a high priority on newborn photos. We agreed before we were pregnant that we would much rather spend a few hundred dollars on a newborn photography session than getting pictures of me looking fat and uncomfortable. We both want precious pictures like this of our sweet baby girl that we can proudly hang on the walls, show to her boyfriends, and cry over when she get's married.

I started looking for a photographer about a week ago. I have seen plenty of pictures of baby's in unsafe positions (see below and to the right!) Obviously I want my baby to be safe, so I looked at photos from several local photographers before contacting any. I'm a pretty frugal person, so I was trying to find a photographer who took good pictures AND that I could afford! That meant, basically, that pictures were included in the cost. I found a lot of photographers who charged $150 per session, but most of the packages didn't include a single picture! (and they didn't have prices listed for prints!). I understand that photographers do a lot of work learning about photographer, as well as taking and editing pictures, but I still can't justify spending that much money just to have the pictures taken. What if I had the session done and then couldn't afford to purchase any of the photos? That would be a huge waste of money...

 
Anyway, the moral of the story is, keep looking and you'll find what you want (probably). I kept looking and eventually realized I already knew a photographer who charged a reasonable amount and included digital files in the price! AND her prints are very reasonable, so I'm thrilled to say we booked a session to photograph our precious baby and it won't include any of the miserable ideas down below.