At BennyAni Photography studio safety is our first priority. Whether its the safety of the newborn, younger siblings, or the mama who brought us their sweet baby just days or weeks after they were born. We make sure that every one that walks through our door feels safe and comfortable with our work. So... how is it that we accomplish this for our clients you might be wondering? This blog will break down the measures we take to do this for every client we work with!
PLUS stay tuned to the end of the blog to see how we keep our babies safe while capturing advanced poses. I won't lie, it might blow your mind a little!
If you don't know this already, Marggie is a former labor and delivery nurse. That in and of itself is a huge comfort to every parent that brings their baby to us. She has handled thousands of babies, not to mention she raised two of her own! Marggie is very gentle with babies and sometimes I'm pretty sure that she has baby magic. I can't even tell you how many times I've heard a client say that very thing during their session. She knows how to keep babies comfortable and happy while being extremely safe and gentle with them. She has been in business for 4 years now and has experienced many newborn sessions and again, has handled hundreds of newborns at the studio alone!
Me? I have handled many newborns as well! Certainly not to the degree Marggie has but I do have a lot of experience with babies. I have several years of nanny experience as well as growing up working in my church nursery. I also have 4 little cousins that I have snuggled and watched grow for the last 9 years of my life. I have worked alongside Marggie for a year and a half now and am well versed in the processes we have in place to keep babies safe and comfortable here at the studio. Marggie trusted me with her kids as I cared for her son several weeks after he was born up until he was 1! She felt comfortable hiring me for this job knowing that I am careful with babies and know how to handle them.
We are constantly working on improving our training and education. A photographer should never stop taking classes, going to workshops, refreshing their safety training, etc. We are always doing whatever we can to better our work and safety! It won’t take long for you to see that our main concern is safety here. We go through hand sanitizer like crazy as we are always overusing it to be sure all our babies can stay as healthy as possible. We NEVER handle a newborn without cleaning our hands first. All backdrops and outfits used are also frequently washed to keep everything clean for clients. Non-Fragrant detergent is used on ALL of our studio laundry so we can avoid any rashes or allergic reactions with our babies.
What about a sick child in the studio? A sick baby means a reschedule. All our clients are informed of this so as to try to avoid having any sickness floating around in the studio. We totally get it, kids get sick easily. No one has control over whether their child is sick or not so we have no problem rescheduling those with a sick child. Trust us, we get it! Newborns are especially suseptible to sickness so we do our best to keep sickness out of here!
Onto safety with posing...
Marggie has participated in many classes and watched many, many videos on safety with newborn posing. I'd call her an expert with posing and I doubt anyone would argue with me on that one. I'll say it again, she has baby magic!
Our full newborn sessions include family and sibling pictures. You will notice that all sibling images from our newborn sessions picture our newborns swaddled up like a "baby burrito". Why do we do this? SAFETY. While Marggie captures the shot, I am always off to the side ready to jump in and grab the baby if a sibling gets tired or has a hard time sitting still. Babies can be heavy to a child. I am always checking with the child holding the baby to see if they need a break. Sometimes they just need me to hold the babies head for them for a few seconds while they take a little break. If I do need to jump in to catch a baby, we need those little arms and legs wrapped up so they don't get grabbed and the baby isn't harmed from the catch. They are so fragile we have to be as careful as possible! Once an adult takes their hands off the baby for a shot, my eyes never leave the baby. It only takes a split second to fall or roll and we can't have that happening with a precious little one!
Those images look great, right? What you can't see is me right at the end of the frame of these images. Half the time Marggie is cropping or editing me out of images! My hands are out and the baby is within a short reach! I'll admit, my heart pounds pretty hard during sibling portions but that's because you could sat I'm on the edge of my seat the whole time. We NEVER pose siblings for a shot if we see any signs the baby won't stay safe. There are several poses we use depending on the age of the brother or sister so that with really young siblings, we can still capture all the kids together if possible. We try very hard to get the perfect shot of siblings with their new little brother or sister but we never compromise the safety of the baby!
The safety and well being of a new mama is also just as important to us. I don't know if you've heard but having a baby is exhausting!! New mom's need time to heal and rest. We keep a couch by the shooting areas and just like our sibling shots, we are always checking to make sure mama is feeling okay and is confident holding her baby in the poses we walk them through.
We like to hear the delivery story of our newborns and knowing whether a mom had a c-section or not is important too! We don't want a healing mom to lift a younger child or put the baby in the car if they are still healing! We will happily do any heavy lifting for them so as to avoid any pain or discomfort to the mom.
Now to the fun part of the blog... You'll get to see some really cool photoshop magic with one of our hardest poses for a newborn. We call it The Froggy Pose. We get asked frequently how this one even works and well... let me just show you!
This pose is 2 images on top of each other. It's hard to wrap your head around how it works but that's only because it's so amazing!
*Disclaimer* These images have not been edited and are NOT final images.
Here is image one:
For this pose, you can see that I have to gently hold the babies head to keep the weight of their head off of their arms/wrists. We NEVER let go of a baby in a pose where their head isn't supported. On a rare occasion we do have a baby strong enough to hold themself up but even in that case, we still never let go of them in this pose. The "bottom half" of the baby in this image is what will be used in the final composite.
Here is image two:
For this shot, I gently hold the babies wrists together so their head will stay supported and their wrists won't pull away and drop their head. Notice how I try to keep my arm low and my wrist down away from their face so this image can be overlapped with the first image and my wrist won't show.
Are you ready to see the magic of the final product?!
Here it is!
Doesn't it take your breath away?! This is one of our favorite images EVER. She is so squishy and those cheeks in her little hands melt our hearts! You can see in the final product that we used the wrists from the first image and the head and face from the second image.
This pose is one of our most advanced poses and shows you that even with a pose as complex as this, we never compromise the babies safety.
If you would like to learn more about newborn posing safety and the measures that should be taken by every newborn photographer to keep your little one safe, check out this newborn photography page for parents who would like to know more about how a baby should be handled at their session.
If you are curious about what you should be looking for in your newborn photographer, check out this blog Marggie wrote on the importance of picking the right photographer to capture your newborn, even if that isn't us!
Never be afraid to ask us or your chosen newborn photographer what measures are taken to ensure the safety of your baby! We strive to make you feel safe and make sure you feel your baby is safe and in the right hands. I hope that after reading this you feel confident that safety is our number one priority! As long as your baby is in our hands we will do everything we can to keep your baby happy, healthy and most importantly - SAFE!
