In-home Newborn Session | Northern Virginia Lifestyle Photographer

Family Memoirs

Oh my goodness. This post has TWO favorites, and you'll see why....

Here is my original post:

The first thing I do when I get home from a shoot is upload my images and quickly scan through them. I feel unsettled and out of sorts until the images have been uploaded and backed up, and I have a general idea of what we've captured.

When I was going through Michelle and Marshall's session, this image stopped me in my tracks. I literally stopped and stared at the screen. Of course, there is the beautiful image of Michelle, glowing with love and pride, holding her sweet sleeping baby. That scene will get. my. heart. every single time I see it. But as I took a closer look at the images on her dresser, I started tearing up.

I had noticed the portraits while shooting and asked her to stand near them so I could capture them. But when I got home and took a closer look, I had to find out who was in them. Because, how cool is it that we have a pic of mom holding her baby next to a pic of grandma and grandpa holding their baby!? My heart was all in pieces over this incredible image.

So I emailed Michelle and asked about the images in the background. Here's her response. 

Hi! Oh my gosh, this is embarrassing but those are the photos that came in the frame! My brother in law gave [the frames] to us for Christmas and I haven't put photos in yet. They will be perfect for the gorgeous pictures you took of Clara. ... I'm not giving you much to work with here! You can write how we named Clara after her maternal great-grandmother. Her middle name is Knox, which is after her paternal grandmother. She is the fourth generation in the family to have that name.

Be still my heart. 

Literally.

I laughed so hard when I read this because this whole time I was feeling all the feels about this image and it was all...stock images. HA! Well, that's good, because I had two favorites all along. (It did give me a great idea for future shoots though.)

My REAL FAVORITE

The evolution of this shot becoming my favorite was a little different than the one with the stock images in the frames. It didn't stop me in my tracks while I was culling the session. But later, when I saw it a second time, I knew that this image was a b+w image and when I converted it to b+w I felt all the feels you are feeling right now.

When images are converted to b+w, the distraction of color falls away, and we are left with the raw details of the image. In this case, we captured an intensely emotional, intimate moment between daddy and his little girl. When I saw it, it brought me back immediately to all of the times I had put my head to my newborn baby's head and whispered, pleading, "I haven't slept longer than three hours in weeks. Please... just sleep a little longer this one time." I would try to will my baby to sleep, so I could sleep (or shower, or eat). But then, often enough, I'd catch a hint of my baby. Maybe it was their new baby smell, or maybe it was a dreamy smile, or the grasp of their tiny little hand on my finger. Whatever it was, my heart lept, my walls crumbled and I was left feeling still and quiet and grateful, and in love.