Thompson's Newborn Shoot

I'll just go ahead and warn you that this post is very picture-heavy. There are just so many photos from our newborn session that I like that I couldn't stand to take any out.  During this pregnancy, I went the extreme economical route with maternity photos, having my sister April take several for me, and having T snap a few bare belly shots, too.  But I knew once Thompson was here, I would want some professional quality photos to capture our new family of three.

I hadn't used a photographer for anything since our wedding photos, so once my third trimester came around I began scouring Instagram feeds of other local mamas that had used professional photographers. After seeing several local women that had used her, I immediately fell in love with Wonderlight Photography.  Emilie of Wonderlight is super talented.  I loved all of the bright the colors that she uses in her shots, every picture is clean, crisp and colorful.  Exactly what I was wanting.

After stalking her Instagram account for several weeks, I finally reached out to her to see if she had availability around my due date.  We devised a plan to stay in contact around the time I was due, and she'd come over to the house a few days after we got home from the hospital.  The first days after getting home from the hospital are prime baby photography days, but I soon realized they're also some of the hardest days for new parents.  We were exhausted, I was sore and a little loopy from pain meds, and Thompson was still getting the hang of life on the outside.  Emilie was awesome through the entire process.  She was so patient with all three of us, baby Thompson just didn't want to fall asleep.  We had to take several breaks during the shoot so that I could feed him, and T and I tried to pull out all the stops to get him to sleep.  She even brought us dinner whenever she came over.  I mean, c'mon, how great is that?

We were never successful in getting Thompson to fall asleep, so we shot the majority of his photos that day with him being awake, and then Emilie so graciously offered to come back a few days later to photograph him asleep.  Once I got the photos back I was so incredibly thankful that she let us do that.  I love the photos where he looks awake and alert, but the photos of him sleeping are just so sweet.  I couldn't imagine not having captured those moments.

A week later we received our photos for our first review.  Not only is Emilie an incredibly talented photographer, but her Photoshop skills are on point.  In my postpartum daze there were several details that I forgot to address before our shoot, like removing cell phone chargers from the bedside tables and taking a lint roller to my black dress that was covered in pet hair.  Emilie was able to fix all of those things in our photos, plus smooth out some baby acne on Thompson's face.

I was so impressed with all of the photos that we received, and with our entire experience with Emilie.  We definitely plan on using her again soon.  In addition to her traditional shoots, she also offers mini sessions that are really reasonably priced, and is hosting a few classes this summer instructing moms how to best use their cameras to photograph their kids.  (You can visit her site here) I think I'm going to have to take the class, because I'd love to learn her ways!