Just one week ago we photographed a fun, formal Studio Newborn Session with less-than-a-week-old Emmaline Grace! We began chatting with her mom Sarah back in February about the Studio Newborn Session with us, but the confirmation for the Newborn Session was made a little over a week and a half from her very early birth (and we're SO happy that we happened to be photographing a 10 hour wedding by the time the family went home from the hospital and that we weren't out of state her first week of life!). It's extremely important to capture an Newborn Session in the studio of a photographer within the first week of a baby's life so that the little bundle of joy doesn't squiggle away too much and spends most of her/ his time napping, so we knew as soon as we got a text from Emmaline's dad Mike that she was due at any moment at the hospital on Wednesday that we needed to act quickly to schedule a date for her Newborn Session! This little one was originally due on July 20th, 2019 and then her mom Sarah was scheduled to be induced on July 6th, but Emmaline had other plans. Emmaline actually arrived in June days away from July and surprised us all (in a great way)!
Emmaline Grace was born on June 27th, 2019. She was born the day after we spent the day in Grand Rapids photographing a Real Estate Session of a doctor's office (5 hour round-trip/ half day of photographing), so we were busy editing those Real Estate photographs that next day when we found out about Emmaline's arrival! Sarah had chatted a week and a half prior about how she wanted to include a cute unicorn basket of their own in the Newborn Session props, so we reminded her husband Mike of this when scheduling which of 4 immediate dates they wanted to come in to the Studio for portraits. When these 3 (four including they and their pup!) were settling back in finally home from the hospital over the weekend, we headed off and captured Aileen & Ryan's wedding in South Bend for 10 hours over the weekend, came home to speed choose and edit their 150 Teaser Wedding Photos for an intense couple of days to get them finished a day early before Aileen & Ryan's honemoon abroad, then we set up the studio Newborn props and backdrop for little Emmaline for Tuesday the 3rd! Things were quick and fast for days, so we were so excited when they showed up in the Studio and we were able to slow things down for the Newborn Session.
Emmaline Grace was one of the best babies we've ever had the privilege of photographing. She was a tiny little newborn quietly napping as we swaddled her up for her portraits and seamlessly moved her from one prop to the next. Her parents Sarah and Mike were a little tired from the whirlwind of the less-than-a-week of days in the hospital then finally making it home (to the standard consistent feeding and diaper changes), so we played some cute, soft baby music as we chatted with them and captured Emmaline in different baskets and fun things!
Some history on babies and the visuals of newborns: Did you know that light blue was ORIGINALLY the "female" color and that pink was a boy's color because pink was seen as more masculine (i.e. closer to the "aggressive" color red)...? Colors and gender weren't a "thing" at all for newborns back in the day because ALL babies wore white dresses historically because that made it easier for moms to change and bleach the soiled cloths and baby clothing. Those white dresses could also be passed down through the generations because the clothes weren't "gendered." It wasn't until the mid-1900s that clothes really started to be marketed in clothing catalogues as "pink for girls and blue for boys and everything you buy needs to reflect this." This was further encouraged when ultrasounds began to let mothers know the gender of their baby before the baby was born! This helped the corporations further encourage buying more gender-specific clothing. For these reasons though we love when babies don't wear their "gender's color." Light blue on baby girls is so beautiful that we immediately took to Emmaline's little pink swaddling cloth! We added her pink headband and a pink backdrop for a more subtle gender "traditional color" nod, but we were excited that we were able to incorporate both of these pastel colors together.
Back to the Session, though: Emmaline was such a sweet girl that didn't fuss or cry the entire 2.5 hours that we photographed her! The only time that she made any noise was when we took off her swaddling cloth again to try to get her onto her tummy for a few shots. This was only because she hasn't ever had "tummy time" before, so she was just confused as to what Jason was doing. We decided that tummy time wasn't necessary and wrapped up the Session with photos of Emmaline and her dad's favorite team hats-! She woke up right at the end during the photos with her dad's hats and we were excited that we got a few photos of her awake, sweet personality during such a fun portion of the Session!
((An aside: we made a GIF out of some of the photos of Emmaline with her dad's hats that we think is pretty cute: ))
Congratulations again, Sarah and Mike, on your new little bundle of joy/ new family member Emmaline Grace! She was such a sweetheart and we are thrilled that we were able to capture her within her first week of life just a week ago! We can't wait to see what she grows up to do and how she evolves throughout the years! (We can't wait to print the photos you choose of her and deliver everything!)
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Unrelated: We're currently editing more wedding photos for our couples, prepping for a short couple day camping trip, and will be attending (rather than photographing) our first wedding this year: Jenny's cousin Jessica's wedding in about a week & a half (since they've been together for 9+ years and have a home, 2 kids, and dog together, it's well deserved)! We cancelled a trip to Ohio with our friends (3 days of camping that had been booked) upon finding out about the sudden cousin wedding, hence camping locally for a couple days coming up soon since we got a pop-up camper this year and only used it once in winter so far. We will see those two friends of ours in about 3.5 weeks, so we're excited that we'll still get to see them this summer: A tradition that we've carried on for the past 3 or 4 years!
It's nice to almost be done with editing our current clients' photos (which we're on time with and will wrap up in weeks on July 30th at the latest), have just delivered photographs to 4 clients, and have August coming up as our lightest Wedding Photography month of the season. Our Wedding Season lasts until the start of November and we also have Engagement Sessions and some Family Portrait Sessions sprinkled throughout August to November (which we're excited for as well)! October is very full of many weddings this year and we JUST booked our lodging to capture an Indianapolis wedding (since it's 3 hours away), so we only have a total of 4 weekends available in the next 4 months. We'll be busy making client physical products, prints, more boxes, etc. as well as capturing weddings, Engagement Sessions, and Family Portraits throughout the next 6 months with everything for clients for the year hopefully wrapping up by December 31st! Here's to LLCs and the people who fully run them and their physical offices & studio with only 2 people on the team-! #Whew! Thanks for checking in to this Weekly Wednesday and we hope you had a great 4th of July/ weekend with loved ones like we did-!