Remember Shannon from this incredibly popular documentary maternity session I posted? My website almost broke with the weight of all the traffic that flooded in to look at those images, and really, I can’t blame you. She was like a heavenly pregnant supermodel, flown in from the skies above. To capture her pregnancy was really a pure joy – it stands as one of my absolutely favourite sessions from 2015, a year in which I had dozens upon dozens of incredible jobs, so I feel like that should tell you how much I enjoyed myself while shooting and editing it.
Well, Shannon had her baby (as most pregnant people do) and, as we all should have predicted, her daughter Willow is absolutely gorgeous. I went back to their family home in Leichhardt, Sydney, about four weeks after Willow was born, to meet her and to capture some unposed, relaxed portraits of the new baby and the new parents in action. We had cups of tea, endless cuddles in bed, some nappy-off time, lots of feeds, dancing in the kitchen, and even a little nap (the baby, not me… okay, fine, I wished it was me).
I really love that in these pictures you can see the minutiae of day-to-day life with a baby, the unstyled and honest family clutter that I find so utterly charming. A healthy level of mess in the kitchen, useful little piles of everyday stuff on the couch, the visible nappy bin, the bassinette next to the bed with the video baby monitor pointed JUST SO, so as to provide the clearest picture of dear baby while she slumbers. All of these little details make me happy, because they are real. They come with a baby, and a family, and one day they won’t be there because the kids will be in their own houses and you will have endless time to style your house JUST SO whenever you please. And you will look back on these photographs and say, oh yeah, our house was full of all those little things, and wasn’t it so lovely?
Shannon and Charles are utterly smitten with their new addition (in case you can’t tell!) and I really look forward to seeing what kind of person Willow will grow to be, and to see how their love grows with her.
Want to see more unposed baby sessions at home? Check these out!
1. Harriet
2. Toby
3. Rory
4. Julian
5. Marcus
Click here to book a beautiful baby session of your own.
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