It’s been an interesting two weeks here in Kingston to say the least! Things have changed so rapidly with concerns of COVID-19 being present in our country and now with quite a few cases locally, I know that many of you have anxiety about what the future holds. All Photographers in Ontario have been deemed non-essential and I can totally understand why. We all have to do our part to flatten the curve so my husband Blaine and I decided to shut down the studio before we were asked to and rescheduled everyone in the studio as soon as we could. We had our last session on March 23rd, 2020 and the government mandated we shut down soon after that.
Like many parents out there we have been thrown into homeschooling our kids which has fallen on me as my husband is still working full time from home. It’s been challenging and we quickly threw out the schedule the kids and I came up with for this week. But we’ve had so much fun! We’ve done a lot of experiments, watched movies, played some TVO Kids math games and surprisingly enough my kids are getting along better than ever. We’ll be just sticking to learning Math, Science, Reading everyday and Art. Both kids have also wrote stories that I’m creating with them in Photoshop and I can’t wait to share them with you when we’re done! We’ve protected our kids from a lot of what is happening as they are young and we don’t want to add any unnecessary anxiety onto their tiny shoulders. They know what’s going on, have created a tag game by chasing each other around the house saying they’ll give each other the “Corona” and generally just being kids. It’s hard to imagine them looking back on the time they lived through a Pandemic. Incredible and terrifying all at the same time, am I right?
So that’s left me with editing the sessions I had right before I officially shut down in the evening. It’s been totally fine and put me right back to our schedule before our youngest started school. I’m happy to say I am almost finished all my sessions! YEAH! I have one newborn session left and a few sessions I am still waiting to hear back from clients about choosing their favourites. Then it’s on to Spring cleaning the studio and house.
But I’ve not forgotten about all of you! There are so many parents out there that know with Photographer’s out of commission they may have to wait for those posed newborn portraits until their babies are a bit older. I have a few clients still pregnant that we’ll wait for the okay to see each other but in case I can’t see you until many weeks after your baby arrives I wanted to create some tips on how you could take portraits of your little one at home by yourself with your camera or phone in a more lifestyle setting. And then, boom just like that when I started brainstorming how I could show you, the Milky Way – A Photographer’s Resource came out with this handy guide that will show you simple ways to take your own newborn portraits at home using what you have available and they graciously allowed us photographers to share the guide with all of you! How amazing are they?! You don’t even have to have a fancy camera for these portraits, it’s just about capturing your babies newness in the best way you can.
Now, I definitely want to stress to all of you that the posed newborn portraits you see me share with you on my blog, website and social media has taken me 9 years of education and practice to achieve. There are a lot of safety precautions I take and things I look for when I’m photographing newborns to make sure their positions are as safe as possible. The pictures I recommend you take are what is considered lifestyle portraits. They are casual, baby led portraits and you’ll see the difference between the portraits I create and what lifestyle portraits look like below. So I hope this handy guidebook helps you out while taking portraits of your new little one while you are safe at home and I’m looking forward to hearing from my clients and anyone else that would like professional portraits taken of their babies or family when we are out of quarantine. I would so appreciate you sharing this blog post with your friends and family so that we keep our small business fresh in your minds for when we are able to create these special keepsakes for you once again!
All my best to you and your family and please stay healthy friends!
Jen and family
P.S. I’ll have more fun things for you in the future, including our 9 year celebration on April 10th so be sure to follow us on social media often!
I hope this guide helps you create some beautiful portraits on your phone or with your camera at home so that you can enjoy a look back on how little your newborn was when he or she was born and I hope to hear from you in the future for your newborn posed studio portraits.
Stay healthy friends!
Jennifer Willard Photography specializes in Maternity, Newborn, Baby’s First Year and Family Photography serving Kingston, Belleville, Brockville and the Perth Ontario area. Our studio is known for it’s use of colour, texture and unique set ideas custom to each family’s favourite colours and we look forward to celebrating our 9th year in business starting April 10th, 2020. Be sure to follow us on social media to see what new and exciting things are happening next!
