Baby in a Basket

My last two photo sessions have been newborn sessions.  My normal photography style is very simple, without a lot of posing, props or post processing, so newborn photography is very different from what I'm used to doing.  That's OK because I LOVE babies and really enjoy working with them.  However, up to this point I had avoided some of the less realistic poses.  If you spend any time looking at newborn photography (and why would you?), you know what I'm talking about...babies in what we'll call unusual situations, like sitting in a basket, holding up her own head, hanging in gauze from a tree branch, etc.  I don't expect I'll be doing a whole lot of these overly posed portraits in the future, but I do want to be able to offer them if a client asks, so I got a hold of a friend with a newborn and asked to borrow her baby.

The portrait below is the popular "head in hands" pose, and I'll let you in on a photographer's secret.  It's fake.  Babies cannot do this.  It is a composite shot, meaning it is put together from two different photos in Photoshop.  At no point in the photography session was this sweet baby holding her own head up.  I was skeptical...it's so against my style to pose something so far from real life, and I'm not a huge fan of a lot of post processing work, but I have to admit that I love it.  Plus, it was so funny to see her little face as we posed her, that my friend and I were both cracking up.  So, here she is....a sweet little baby in a basket.

And a slightly more realistic shot...well, as real as a baby in a basket can be.  This was one sound asleep baby.  Hmmm...maybe babies like to be in baskets.