When we used to do traditional baby sessions, we typically did newborn, 6-9 month, and one year. Even after transitioning to lifestyle sessions, we kept this format for baby pictures. I’m not sure why, I guess I just figured that’s how I should do it. After doing Sidney’s newborn pictures, I told Amy and Jaron that the 6-9 month session would be next. They asked about 3-month, and I said we could do it, but not a lot changes between newborn and 3-month in regards to pictures. Just baby is awake and aware more than the newborn session. Again, I was in the traditional session mindset. Midway between month two and three, Amy messaged me and asked for a 3-month session. As we were talking, I pretty much had to slap myself and remind myself that I’m doing lifestyle sessions now to tell a family’s story. Sidney had a lot more personality at three months old and Amy wanted to capture that personality in pictures. Again, with traditional baby pictures, while some do three-month pictures, it’s very hard to pose a three-month-old because they are moving more. With lifestyle sessions, that’s totally fine! I want them to move around more. While I LOVE lifestyle sessions, it has surprisingly been a hard mindset to get into from traditional pictures and we didn’t even offer traditional baby pictures for that long, less than a year in fact!
Regardless, after I broke my mindset and got into lifestyle session mode, we set up the session. The day of the session started out pretty dark and gray. It was raining out, and the clouds were thick, so not much sunlight was breaking through. Fortunately, about 30 minutes to an hour before the session, the clouds seemed to be opening up some and let more light through. This worked out perfectly. The light was fantastic in the house and the session went so great. As I have mentioned before, the heart of lifestyle sessions is to tell a family’s story. Whether it’s the purchase of a new home, the introduction of a new family member (human or animal), a new stage in life such as newborn or three months old. Whatever it may be we want to tell that story. We couldn’t be more thankful and honored that Amy and Jaron would allow us to continue to tell their story through the different stages.
