Lola is a beautiful and playful brown mastiff. She is eight years old now, and I photographed her when she was a three year old pup as well!

So I got to see how much she has changed in that time.

Which is not really all that much, haha.

Here’s how documentary newborn photography is different from the traditional studio newborn photo experience:

• it can be done anywhere - especially in your own home!

• there’s no baby ‘age limit’ - babies can be just a day old, or they can be a few months old! Each phase of a baby’s life is precious and can be documented to preserve cherished memories for a family. Whether it’s those baby wrinkles when they were just hours new to the world, or the chubby thighs as they started to fill out from all that yummy milk.

• it doesn’t take nearly as long - candid photos of babies and their families enjoying their time together don’t have to take hours. Some families choose to document a “Day in the Life” with their baby, so that we can capture many activities, especially if they have older children, too. But many families with a newborn and no older siblings are perfectly happy to spend just an hour swooning over their little one, and we get dozens of beautiful memories captured from this experience.

I got to see these wonderful children for a brief moment in time this year, whereas their parents get to watch them grow each and every day. Day by day, their hours are filled with fleeting moments. But the fact that I only get to see them briefly every year or so, gives me a distinct advantage. I focus on what few other photographers see: the fleeting, unorchestrated moments that make up a life.

This is the magic ✨

Midway through the month, I threw out my back. It might have had something to do with the 15-hour wedding I shot two days prior to that, or with my TERRIBLE posture when editing photographs. Or with the fact that I'm getting old. So old... :D