Good question! Sometimes it's easy - if you have a brand new baby you'll most likely want to book a newborn shoot, and if you're 30 weeks pregnant you'll most likely want a maternity shoot. Sometimes it's not as easy to decide! For example if you're pregnant and also have other children, you might be wondering whether to book a family photoshoot or a maternity photoshoot. Here's a general guide to each of my shoots and what I will focus on: Newborn Photoshoot: 2 hour shoot, where I capture different portrait photographs of your new baby (your baby will be under 12 weeks old), with a couple of family/parent shots. The focus is on the baby mostly and I don't tend to do portraits of older siblings on their own, parents on their own or capture lots of candid family fun during these shoots. Maternity Photoshoot: 1 hour shoot, where I capture solo maternity portraits in various outfits and positions, with some couples or family portraits as well. The main focus is on the bump, and less on capturing family fun - see below for family photoshoots if you'd like to capture more of that! Family Photoshoot: 1 hour shoot, where I capture group photos of the whole family, or just the kids (or whichever family group you choose) and candid shots of your family / your child(ren) having fun. There will be a few solo portraits of each member of the family, but the focus is very much on the group. If you're pregnant, you might prefer a maternity photoshoot so I know to focus more on your glorious bump! Milestone Photoshoot: 1 hour shoot, where I capture portraits of your older baby up until they start walking or their first birthday, whichever comes first! If your baby is younger than 12 weeks, you will need to book a newborn shoot, as we will need to allow more time for feeds and changes. If your baby is older than 1 or already walking, a family photoshoot will be best. Mobile Studio Photoshoot: at least 2 hours in your own home, with a studio style backdrop and lighting. These are suitable for newborns, babies who are not walking and solo or couple maternity portraits. For safety reasons, the mobile studio isn't suitable if you've got a walking baby, pets, older children or would like group photos.

Get in touch via my contact page or via email (sineadpatchingphotography@gmail.com) and we can get you booked in! Once we've decided on a date and time, I'll send over my terms and conditions for you to sign electronically, as well as an invoice for a deposit. The deposit is taken off the final balance after the shoot. Once you've agreed to the terms and conditions and paid the deposit, the chosen date and time is yours!

You can find all my prices here.

No. I don't pose babies, and do not have the training to safely do it. If this is the style you are interested in, I would be happy to recommend other local newborn photographers who are trained to safely pose your baby.

Edit, yes! Retouch, no: not without previous agreement and an additional fee per photo. Currently this is £15 per image. Editing means adjusting and perfecting the colours, the brightness, the angle and other global adjustments, whereas retouching is hiding blemishes, softening skin, thickening hair etc and this is done by hand using separate software. The only exception to this rule is for newborn photoshoots: a small retouch of newborn babies' faces is offered as part of that package as babies often have small scratches in the early days. You can let me know if you would like me to hide them.

No. I used to have a studio at my old house but in 2022 we moved and the current studio is under construction. Some of my older blog posts still refer to the studio, but I am currently only offering home and outdoor shoots. I offer a bespoke mobile studio service - where I bring my studio setup to you - for certain shoots, so if you were hoping to book a studio shoot please contact me to find out more!

Yes! I am happy to keep all your photos private. Just let me know when booking that you’d like private photos, and I’ll help you fill in my GDPR form to show you don’t consent to the images being shared.

For any questions before booking, I’m happy to chat over the phone! We can book a call into the calendar at a convenient time for both of us. All other communication will be via email. Even if we don't have a call, once you've confirmed your booking, you will receive my number. I will message you on the day of your shoot, and if you order a print, I'll also message you when it arrives to arrange getting it to you. I don't respond to instant messages at any other time, and for important questions or other information about our booked shoots, I will use email only.

You'll receive an email with a booking form, as well as a session guide to help you prepare for your shoot and a timeline to give you an idea of what will happen and when.

You'll receive a session guide before your shoot with information about all of this, but if there's anything in particular you'd like to ask about, please don't hesitate to email!

No problem. We can either postpone with no need to pay a new deposit, or pack an umbrella if you're feeling brave!

Up to 2 weeks after your shoot, you’ll get a proofing gallery to view and pick favourites from. Then, up to 2 weeks after you’ve picked your favourites (or purchased an upgrade for the whole gallery), you’ll receive a download code for the finished photos.

These are proofs and they all have this watermark. Watermarking allows you to browse the gallery and pick favourites, whilst also preventing any unauthorised screen shotting and sharing of my work. I’ve made them as faint as possible so you can still see all the important details, but if you find the watermark is hiding something, just let me know and I’ll send a low res screen shot of that particular image so you can see it clearly! The watermarks will of course be removed from all your final images that you download.

No. Raw files are never given out.

Don’t panic! If you’re reading this before your shoot, please do use my booking form to give me as many shot ideas as you can think of beforehand so we can avoid that scenario. For maternity: if you have already had the shoot and realised you forgot to mention a key shot, a gallery extension session can be booked for £100 to capture those angles/poses/props. I offer these for maternity shots only as I appreciate with baby’s imminent arrival there might not be enough time to budget for another full price session. There are additional terms and conditions for extensions which I can send if you want to book one. For family, newborn and others: a new full price session will need to be booked to capture these shots.

Sadly, despite hopping around like a clown and generally making a fool out of myself to get children and pets and everyone else to smile and have a good time, the final result is out of my control. I can’t force smiles (though I wish I could; it would make my job a lot easier!) so in this case a new full-price session will need to be booked if you would like to try again.

Yes! Your online gallery can be reactivated at any time - just send an email my way and I’ll get them all back up there for you to view. Then if you’d like to go ahead and upgrade we can get them all ready to download and order a print! Your images will be safe on my hard drive for 2 years.

I hope this never happens but in the very unlikely event that you've got concerns with your final images, it’s very important that you don’t download any just yet. By downloading the images you are confirming that you are 100% satisfied with them, and nothing can be done after that. If you haven’t downloaded them yet, get in touch with me and let me know what’s on your mind. I’m sure it’s something that is easily solved!