Sweet baby Brooks was on my schedule for a newborn photo session on a cold February day in St. Louis. The weather report was calling for ice and snow in the afternoon. But if you’ve lived in St. Louis for any amount of time, you know that wintry weather in the forecast is so hit or miss that you can’t really trust that anything will actually happen until you can see a layer of white on the ground. But if it does come, the entire metro area is revealed to be hopelessly incapable of driving on roads coated with ice or snow.
So I woke up excited to photograph this new life and his beautiful family, but a bit worried that the ice in the forecast might make it tricky to get there and home safely. So when my client emailed to check in about the weather forecast and offer to reschedule if necessary, I was so grateful for her care and concern, and yet I also really wanted to get this session in. I had another newborn session scheduled for that morning, but had left a window of time between my morning session and my afternoon one. Since the wintry mix was supposed to start around 1pm, we decided to bump the afternoon session up to right after my morning session so that I could be home before the roads were too icy (because despite the years I lived in Colorado, I include myself among the St. Louis folks who struggle to drive in wintry weather).
I was so happy to be able to make the session work. Even though my lifestyle newborn sessions work really well for newborns of all ages and stages, I do really love to document a week-old fresh and squishy baby like Brooks was!
Another happy accident caused by the weather: My clients had intended to take their dog, Franklin, to doggy daycare during our newborn photo session, but they decided to keep him home so they could stay off the roads themselves. And, not only did I find him to be charming in general, but I was so pleased to be able to include Franklin in some of the super special first family portraits with his new human brother. And his people were pleasantly surprised by his gentle willingness to participate in documenting this beautiful, exhausting, fleeting stage of life with a new baby at home.
On my drive from my first newborn session over to this family’s home, the sleet and snow started falling. By the time I arrived, there was a dusting of white on the grass outside. But despite the cold and overcast day outside, the photos we made together inside this lovely family’s home were rich with warmth and color and love. Check out this beautiful family (doggo included) and the magic we made together below:
