How much does a newborn shoot cost?

How much does a Coventry newborn photographer charge?

Fantastic question, and often the first one most clients ask every time I get an enquiry.

I can give you the very short answer right here, where you can see my prices clear as day!

So now you know how much newborn photography in Coventry costs (I can’t speak for other cities) but what you won’t see there is how much a newborn shoot is worth. So, I thought I’d share a few reasons why newborn photography is so special, and why those photographs will be worth far more to you in years to come.

1. Newborns don’t stay that small for more than a few weeks

I know when you’re in the thick of it with a newborn, especially your first, it can feel like the days and nights will go on forever.

But by the time your new baby is even 3 weeks old, they will be so different already to how they were when they were first born.

When your baby is 3 months old, they will look so different - and so big - compared to how they looked as a tiny newborn.

I know it feels like you will always be able to remember how little they are, but when your baby is 5, 10, 40 years old, it might just feel impossible to think back and picture their tiny little features.

2. Phone cameras don’t do new babies any favours

Now you may be wondering why I’m saying all this given that everyone has a camera phone and everyone takes a million photos of their new baby.

But here’s the thing. New babies often don’t have hair or eyebrows, and don’t open their eyes very often, which means they don’t have anything to give definition to their faces.

This doesn’t matter in real life when we are looking at our beautiful little miracles in 3D, because we can see the natural curve of their faces and the soft shadows on their skin.

The problem with photos is that they are 2D. So if you take a phone photograph of your new baby (who already doesn’t have much to give definition to their face), they are likely to look a bit “flat” in the image, and not at all as perfect as they look when you see them through your own eyes.

When I had my own son, I remember looking at him with my eyes full of love, and thinking “my gosh he looks so beautiful! I’d better take a photo!”. Then, to my dismay, the photo I took looked nothing like my gorgeous boy at all.

As a professional photographer, I know how to bring out all the delicate shadows and definition in a baby’s face. I can make your baby look as beautiful in 2D as they do in 3D through both specific camera techniques and also when editing the images after your photoshoot.

3. Professional photographic prints will last forever

Hands up if you’ve dropped your phone and rendered it useless.

Hands up if you’ve ignored the “your cloud storage is full” warning messages on your phone for several months (or years…!)

Hands up if you can’t locate the old floppy disks and CDs with your photos from 1999-2009 on them.

If I had three hands, they’d all be up right now. I’m guilty of all these things, and I’m a photographer!!

Technology today is incredible. Everyone can photograph their memories whenever they want without having to understand a camera or pay for film to get developed.

The flip side is that now nobody has to get their photos printed in order to see them, nobody bothers to print their photos!

Why is this a problem? Well, it isn’t really. Not yet. But if you think back to 15 years ago, everybody used CDs to store photos, documents, music. Now, if I handed you a CD, would you be able to put it in any of the technology you currently own? Maybe, if you’ve got an older computer or an older car. But I for example, have a car, laptop and TV without anywhere to put a disk, and I can’t be the only one! The last time Apple made a desktop computer with a CD drive was in 2012!!

If your photos (like a lot of mine - I’m very guilty of this!) are stored on a nice safe hard drive, can you be sure that 20, 30, 50 years from now, even if you keep the hard drive totally pristine, that there will still be something to plug it into? USB is slowly becoming USB-C, and the more we update our phones and computers, the more old programmes stop running. How many of us own old-fashioned photo slide projectors? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one, and yet that was how an entire generation of people stored and viewed their photos.

The way we view photographs has changed so drastically in the last 60 years, and I don’t see it stopping now. The only photographs that have stood the test of time over the lest century are the printed photos. The ones on either fine art museum-grade archival paper, or good old proper photographic paper.

Years down the line, when your new baby comes to show their own children old photos of themselves, the printed and/or framed photos will be there, but could you say the same for all 4,000 iPhone snaps?

4. Newborn photos are a way to remember how you were as a family

During my newborn photoshoots, I always suggest including shots of parents and siblings too. If we’re in your home I take photographs of the rooms and the everyday things you do with your baby, like nappy changes and feeding.

You may have some gorgeous shots on your phone of your new baby and the other members of your family, but how many are you in?

Your baby will want to look back later in life and see not only photographs of themselves, but of their family as well!

5. Finally, newborn photography is a way to share your baby with others when they can’t have cuddles in person

This past 12 months have been awful for many many reasons.

From a newborn perspective, there have been so many babies born with grandparents and extended families desperate to meet them, but unable to leave their homes. So many families have not been able to see each another for months on end, or even have a hug when they do meet.

Photography is no substitute for really seeing your loved ones, but a beautiful photograph of a much loved, brand new baby can bring hope and a smile to even the most isolated member of a family.