New mom confession: We took these pictures weeks ago (like 10 days after she was born) and it took me until this past weekend to finally finish editing them. One thing I love about Finley is that she loves to be held and is such a snuggle bug. But, one thing that’s hard about Finley is that she loves to be held so I don’t have full access to my hands to get things done. My mom guilt made me feel pretty bad that it every day editing these images was on my to do list and each day I just couldn’t get it done. I eventually had to realize that this is my new normal and I needed to give myself all the grace!
These images are by far my most favorite images I’ve ever taken and I may be biased but I think they are also my best. Before she was born I started thinking ahead of what I’d need for the session and realized that my 50mm lens wasn’t going to be wide enough for the images. I also realized that the system we’ve done in the past of setting the self timer and running back and forth every ten minutes wouldn’t fly with a baby our arms. So I immediately started looking for the clicker system that would work with my camera only to find out that they are/were sold out everywhere. Instead I decided to rent the clicker system from lens rental and then also rented the Sigma 35mm Art Lens for the week after Finley was born. It was just perfect, the rentals arrived on the 7th, just a few days after we came home from the hospital, and we had the until the 14th giving us plenty of time to pick a good day for the pictures.
There were so many days that we just couldn’t make this happen because the new parent struggle is real but we finally committed to one day and planned a bit ahead so we could have as much time as we needed. We woke up and took turns taking showers and getting ready, fed Finley and then got her good and sleepy before getting started. While I showered Sterling “staged” our room by removing all the clutter (into a corner), making the bed and taking off the shutters to let in more light. To get the images of the three of us we set up the tripod and camera with the 35mm and clicker system which worked like a CHARM! (We will 100% be purchasing it for future use!).
One nice thing about doing our own portraits is that we could take our time and redo images as many times as we wanted because let’s be honest – I can be particular. We also were able to take a break mid way through and eat lunch and feed Finley again and then do another set of images in her bedroom. The images of Finley by herself and wrapped were also done on a completely different day. While I know that if I had hired someone to take our pictures I wouldn’t have had the stress of editing them myself postpartum I did love being able to take our time which led to a really relaxing session for us and for Finley.
Below are some of my favorites from what we took though I’ll be honest – it was SO HARD to narrow these down from the 300 + images that I took. 🙂 I also totally could have posted every one of these in color AND black and white because I love each version so much! I know I will cherish these image forever – I can’t get over how much she’s grown since taking these just 20 some days ago!
