Northlight
Newborn sessionFamily

Newborn session

In your home, in the first two weeks, at whatever pace the baby sets.

What’s included

  • 35 retouched photographs
  • In-home session, no studio visit
  • Baby alone, with parents, and with siblings
  • Unhurried two-hour window — feeding and settling included
  • Private online gallery within 7 business days

Portfolio

Newborn session portfolio

A selection of newborn session shots to inspire your shoot.

About this session

The first two weeks, and a warm room

$425
2 hours
35
20

Newborns in the first five to fourteen days still curl into the positions they held before birth and sleep deeply enough to be moved gently between set-ups. After about three weeks they straighten out, wake more often and the photographs become baby portraits rather than newborn ones — still lovely, and a different picture from the one most people are booking. This is the narrowest window of any service here, which is why the session is usually booked during pregnancy and dated afterwards.

Two things make the difference on the day, and neither is photographic. Turn the heat up to around 78°F an hour beforehand, because a warm room is what lets a newborn stay asleep through being moved. And have a feed ready. Everything else — wraps, props, backdrops — is brought to you, and the two-hour window exists precisely so that feeding and settling happen inside the session rather than eating it.

The session runs at the baby’s pace and nothing about that is negotiable, which is worth saying plainly to parents who are anxious about it going wrong. A newborn who needs forty minutes to feed and settle takes forty minutes; the window was built for that. Nothing is rushed and nothing is forced into a pose. The positions that require a baby to be held in place are done with a parent hands-on, and safety is not a feature of this service, it is the constraint it is designed around.

Thirty-five retouched photographs arrive within seven business days — longer than the other family services, because newborn skin needs careful, slow colour work rather than a batch preset. The gallery covers the baby alone, with parents and with siblings, and the frames of a five-day-old hand against an adult one are the ones almost every family prints. From $425, in your home, anywhere in the metro.

Frequently asked questions about Newborn session

How soon after birth should newborn photos be taken?

The first five to fourteen days. Newborns in that window still curl into the positions they held before birth and sleep deeply enough to be moved gently between set-ups. After about three weeks they straighten out, wake more, and the photographs become baby portraits rather than newborn ones — still lovely, but a different picture.

Do we need to prepare anything?

Turn the heat up to around 78°F an hour beforehand — a warm room is the single thing that most affects how a newborn session goes — and have a feed ready. Nothing else. Props, wraps and backdrops are brought to you, and the session is built around the baby’s pace rather than a schedule.

Is an in-home session subject to the three-day cancellation rule?

It may be. The FTC Cooling-Off Rule gives a buyer three business days to cancel a sale of $25 or more made somewhere other than the seller’s usual place of business, and a session sold in your home can fall inside it. Where it applies, the right stands regardless of our own cancellation schedule and cannot be waived.

Is it safe to pose a newborn like that?

The positions that require a baby to be held in place are done with a parent hands-on in the frame, and the ones that cannot be done safely are simply not done. Nothing is forced, nothing is balanced, and a baby who does not settle into a shape is photographed in the shape they are in. Safety is not a feature of this session, it is the constraint the whole two-hour window is designed around.