I’ve been photographing newborns for over 20 years.
In that time, I’ve had hundreds of families walk through the door of my Saint Paul studio — usually somewhere between day 5 and day 12 of their baby’s life. Which means I’ve been in the room with hundreds of parents during one of the most intense, disorienting, and tender experiences of their entire lives.
I’m not a parent myself. But what I’ve witnessed in that studio — on people’s faces, in the way they hold their babies, in the things they say and don’t say — has taught me more about the first week home than I could have anticipated.
This post is about what I see. And why it matters for your photos.
The Exhaustion Is Real — And It Shows Up Differently Than You’d Expect
When families arrive at the studio in those first days, the exhaustion is almost always visible.
But it doesn’t look the way movies portray it. It’s not dramatic. It’s quieter than that.
It’s the way a father sits down in a chair and just… stays there for a moment. Not scrolling. Not talking. Just still.
It’s the way a mother’s eyes fill up when she’s asked how she’s doing — not because anything is wrong, but because the question lands somewhere very deep.
It’s the slow movements. The way they handle everything carefully, gently, like the world has suddenly become very fragile.
I’ve learned to create a lot of space for that in my sessions. I don’t rush people through the door and into setups. I let people land. I let the baby settle. I ask gentle questions and I listen.
And what I’ve found is this: when parents feel unhurried, something shifts. Their shoulders come down. Their breathing slows. The session stops feeling like a task to complete and starts feeling like a gift they’re giving themselves.
What I Notice That Parents Often Can’t See Yet
Here’s something that happens in my studio that I find deeply moving, even after all these years.
Parents often arrive convinced that their baby isn’t doing anything interesting. “She just sleeps,” they tell me. “He’s too little to do much.” They apologize in advance for the baby being boring.
And then I put the camera on that baby.
And I start photographing the way his whole fist curls around a single finger. The way her mouth makes tiny sucking movements in her sleep. The weight of a head on a chest. The particular way a baby’s back rises and falls with each breath.
By the time I show parents the back of my camera — even just a quick peek at a single frame — they go quiet in a very specific way.
That quiet is recognition. They’re seeing their baby the way the camera sees their baby. And it’s often the first time they’ve been able to pause long enough to really look.
The first week at home is too full of logistics for that kind of looking. The feeding schedules, the diaper changes, the cluster feeds at 2am, the phone calls from relatives, the trying to figure out what every cry means.
A session gives that back to them. A moment of stillness. A reason to just look.
The Things Parents Say During Sessions
I keep a lot of what I hear in the studio private, because it’s shared in a vulnerable space and it belongs to the families who said it.
But I can tell you some of the themes.
Parents in the first week often tell me they feel like they don’t know what they’re doing. That they’re terrified of getting it wrong. That the love they feel is so overwhelming it’s almost frightening.
They tell me they wish someone had warned them how hard it would be. And also how much they wouldn’t change a single thing.
First-time parents often look at their baby with an expression I can only describe as amazed disbelief — like they can’t quite process that this person is real and is theirs.
Parents who have older children at home sometimes get quiet in a different way. There’s a tenderness in watching them with a newborn when they already know how fast it goes.
All of that shows up in photos. You can’t fake it. You don’t need to.
Why the First Week Is Worth Photographing — Even When You’re Not Ready
I hear it often: “I don’t want photos of me right now. I don’t look like myself.”
I understand that feeling. I respect it.
And I also want to offer a gentle counter.
Ten years from now, when you look at photos from your baby’s first week, you will not see what you see in the mirror today. You will see yourself as a new parent. You will see the love on your face. You will see what you looked like the week your family changed forever.
The unwashed hair and the tired eyes — they won’t register the way you think they will. What will register is the context. The moment. The truth of it.
I’ve never had a parent tell me, years later, that they wished they hadn’t been in the photos. I’ve had many tell me they wish they had been in more of them.
This is your reminder. Be in the pictures.
What I’ve Learned About New Parents After 25 Years
If I had to distill what I’ve learned from being in the room with hundreds of new parents into a few honest observations, they would be these.
New parents almost universally underestimate themselves. They come in worried they won’t know how to hold the baby for photos, or that the baby will cry the whole time, or that somehow the session will be a disaster. It almost never is. Parents know their babies better than they realize, and babies know their parents in ways we don’t fully understand yet.
The partners — whether dads, co-parents, or support people — often carry a quiet secondary exhaustion that gets less attention. They’re holding everything together while also figuring out their own enormous emotional shift. I pay attention to them too. I make sure they’re in photos. I make sure they feel seen.
Mothers in the first week are in a particular kind of tenderness that I’ve never found words adequate for. There’s something in the way a postpartum mother holds her baby that is entirely its own thing. I’ve photographed it thousands of times and I still find it arresting every single time.
And all of these parents — without exception — are doing better than they think they are.
Why Photos From This Week Become the Most Important Photos You’ll Ever Have
I’ve talked to parents of teenagers, parents of adult children, grandparents looking back across decades.
The photos that matter most to them are almost never the staged Christmas portraits or the perfectly coordinated family sessions. They’re the ones that captured something true.
The newborn photos that make people stop — that make them put a hand over their mouth or take a slow breath — are the ones that got the weight of those days right. The intimacy. The smallness of a baby against a parent’s chest. The particular light in a room.
Those photos don’t happen by accident. They happen when a photographer has learned to be still and observant enough to catch them — and when parents feel safe enough to stop performing and just be.
That’s what I try to create in every session. Not a performance. An exhale.
The first week home is fleeting in ways that are almost cruel. You will forget things — specific details that feel so vivid right now will soften and blur with time. Photos stop that blur. They hold the details still.
They let you come back to this week whenever you need to.
What Happens in My Studio During Those First Days
When you arrive at my Saint Paul studio with your newborn, I want you to know what to expect.
There is no rushing. There is no rigid schedule. There is warm light and a warm room and a space that has been designed specifically for you and your baby to feel comfortable.
I’ll guide everything. You don’t need to know what poses to do or what outfits to bring for the baby (I have everything). You don’t need to know what to do with your hands or how to stand.
You just need to be there.
Some of the most beautiful images I’ve ever made came from moments of complete inaction — a parent sitting quietly with a sleeping baby, not doing anything in particular, just present. I’m watching for those moments constantly.
The session will take 2 to 4 hours. We’ll pause for feeding, for soothing, for whatever the baby and you need. By the time you leave, most families tell me they feel better than when they arrived.
That’s always my hope. Not just beautiful photos — though I want those for you too. But an experience that honors the magnitude of this week in your life.
If you’re in those early days right now — exhausted, overwhelmed, and not sure you’re ready for photos — that’s exactly when I’d love to hear from you. You don’t have to have it together. You just have to show up.
Book Your Newborn Session → Here
