I told you, I have been very fortunate lately.  My infant portrait sessions have been wonderful, all of the kids have been very calm and cooperative.  This one was kind of a reunion, I shot child life portraits of big brother a few years back, so it was fun to see him again.  He has grown so much and of course, I am sure he didn’t remember me, but we told him he did, and he at least pretended to remember me, so I felt good about that.

Here is the slideshow and a few examples of my favorite images from the infant portrait session.

I love watching the relationships between an infant and their older siblings.

Dad’s initials are the same as the infant’s initials.  This is dad’s cuff link.  It was a spur of the moment idea on dad’s part.  I liked the way it turned out.

This was a cute little blanket with a teddy bear head at the top.  A great photo to start a baby book, I thought.

Great-grandpa made the rocking-horse in the background.  This is the reason I advocate going into the baby’s space rather than going into a studio to photograph an infant portrait.  There are so many very important things that are missed.  I am always going to take important historical significance over cute portraits any day.

As I was photographing the baby on the floor, I noticed that dad was looking in with interest.  So I changed my angle and asked mom to join.  This to me is the perfect little story.

Here is great-grandpa with the boys and their respective rocking horses, both made by his hands.  I can’t think of a more important photo that I took that day.

This one speaks for itself.

Big brother was getting a bit bored of the photoshoot, so I took a few minutes to goof around with him and do something he thought was super fun.  When I suggested he climb into a pile of his stuffed animals, his eyes lit up.  I don’t think his parents knew about this photo at the time, I think it is a surprise for them.  I think they will like it.

Random hats came out.  I though this one was a winner.

There is always the photos of the small little hands contrasted with the parent’s hands, but I like to push the limits of that photo and get something a little different with some unique framing and compositions.  This requires a lot of attempts with a large number of failures because the baby is often moving a lightning speeds, but there are always some successes.

I had to wait for the crying with this little guy as well.  He was such a pleasant little baby.  But I think I got a good one.

As we wrapped up the evening portrait session, the family started winding down and turned on the FOX News Network.  Big brother (only 4 or 5) was completely engrossed in whatever Bill O’Reilly was saying.  There’s a future politician for you.

And I couldn’t have asked for a better wrap up photo than this one.  Great-grandpa and great-grandma relaxing with the baby.  You couldn’t get this photo in a studio, no matter how much planning you did.   Studios are great for formulaic portraits and perfect lighting, but they don’t lend themselves to capturing life.  And as Henri Cartier-Bresson said, “photography is nothing, it’s life that interests me.”