Stevie’s Newborn Shoot!

Between having a baby, landing back in the hospital with postpartum preeclampsia, and then moving – it’s been a busy few weeks to say the least, but I’m so happy to finally share Stevie’s Newborn Shoot, captured beautifully by Jess of The Deerwood Co! Read through for some details into our session and of course to see the photos!

If you’ve been around here a while, you know that The Deerwood Co. did an amazing job of documenting Stevie’s arrival – capturing first my maternity photos, and then a “Fresh 48” session in the hospital. This Newborn Shoot is the culmination of a trio of beautiful memories that I feel so lucky to have had photographed. Due to being hospitalized, we had to postpone this shoot by a week – and in the interim Stevie broke out in some pretty wicked baby acne, though you’d never know it from the photos… so needless to say I was a little nervous that this shoot would be a bust, and though it was definitely our most challenging of the three (the only one where we had to wrangle both kids), Jess is always getting the shot even when it doesn’t seem like it!

The ride down to Jackson is an hour for us, so naturally Stevie slept the whole way and then was wide awake for all her photos. Indie was restless during Stevie’s solo shots, and at this point she also hadn’t fully come around to her sister the way she’s obsessed with her now. I so wish I could have had those “sleepy” newborn shots with big sister fawning all over the new addition… but one thing I love about The Deerwood Co. is that you always receive the truth – packaged in beautiful, everlasting photographs with moody edits – there is no sugarcoating the reality of your family at that very moment when you choose to shoot with Jess.

We worked inside her work-in-progress studio space, formerly a garage – which has several beautifully decorated corners and the “fourth wall” wide open to let in lots of natural light. (On the opposite wall there’s also a window that you’ll see photographs beautifully). She set up a boho bedroom scene, and had lots of little details like various textiles and dried grasses to help set the scene of each little photo backdrop.

Some of my favorite shots are the ones where we got Stevie naked and did the more “traditional” newborn poses with her. She was a little fussy the whole time yet somehow when we took her clothes off and put her in front of the space heater she just posed and gave us the gold! This isn’t what Jess typically does, yet of course she nailed it (minus my kid being wide awake). Speaking of… I also have noticed that since shooting this, Stevie’s eyes have continued to lighten. Between the dark gray “newborn” haze of her eyes and the darker edit, I can barely tell her eyes are blue here in thie shoot! It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? Indie’s eyes did much of the same.

We are so lucky to have access to a truly incredible photographer, and I’m also feeling pretty lucky to have a husband who goes along with my need to have professional family photos taken quarterly (if not more). Indie is slowly starting to cooperate more during these shoots – and of course a newborn is pretty easy to manipulate – so once we’re actually settled into our new home, I plan to bust out my own camera a whole lot more to make sure I’m not missing any of these moments. In the meantime… I’ve got Jess! Scroll through this batch of my favorites. Which one should I get framed?