The Sessions
Baby Photography in Cambridge
The rolls, the milky teeth, the curls, the inquisitive look. A session built around play, in a studio near Cambridge.
Somewhere around six months.
There is a stage — usually between six and nine months — when a baby can sit unaided, is delighted about it, and cannot yet crawl away. It is the best age there is for photographs.
A baby session in my studio is about building an environment where your baby can play, explore and be comfortable. Everything else follows from that.
Papworth Everard · CambridgeYour Baby Session
Play first, photographs second
The photographs I want are the ones nobody arranged: the reaction, the expression, the moment a baby discovers that a curtain can be hidden behind. So the session is set up as play, and I follow rather than direct.
There are three baby experiences to choose from, each including the session and the photographs together. The detail is on the baby photography prices page.
What is the difference between a baby and a newborn session?
A newborn session is in the first weeks, and produces mostly sleeping photographs: curled, quiet, still folded from the womb.
A baby session is any session from about two months onwards, and produces personality. Eye contact, reaction, movement, and eventually opinions.
Between the two there is a short in-between stage I call oldborn — from about one month to three. It has its own character, and I have written about it in photographing babies at six weeks.
What is the best age for a baby photoshoot?
Every age is worth photographing, and I mean that. But if you are choosing one:
- Around 3 months — awake, alert, and smiling on purpose.
- 6 to 9 months — the sitter session. Sitting unaided, not yet crawling away. This is the one most parents book, and the one I would pick.
- Around 12 months — standing, pulling up, and often combined with a smash cake for the first birthday.
Most families who book a newborn session come back at eight or nine months. Those two sessions together tell the whole of a first year.
Do you use props?
Not colourful ones. Your baby should be the thing you look at, and a bright prop takes that away.
What I do have is a set of wooden toys, small musical instruments and soft toys that photograph beautifully and that babies genuinely love. Blankets are a favourite. So are the studio curtains, which every single baby discovers can be hidden behind.
Do we need to bring clothes?
You do not. I keep a collection of rompers, cotton cardigans and dungarees in the studio, in natural fabrics and neutral colours. They cover the nappy while still showing the arms, legs and rolls that are the whole point.
Bring something of your own too if there is an outfit you love.
What time of day works best?
Mornings, usually. It is the simpler half of the day for most families — older brothers and sisters have not yet run out of steam, and it is what most of my clients ask for.
Your baby does not need to have slept, or eaten, or be in any particular mood. We work with whoever arrives, and we take as long as we need.
If a morning does not work for your family, a midday or afternoon session can usually be arranged. Please mention it when you enquire, so it can be planned in advance.
Once the booking is confirmed you receive a welcome brochure with the practical detail — what to bring, what to expect, and how to time the day.
Will parents be in the photographs?
I hope so, and I will keep suggesting it. Children grow up and want photographs of their parents, not only of themselves. I treat every session — newborn, baby or toddler — as a chance for relaxed family portraits as well.
What if my baby cries the whole time?
Some do, for a while. We stop, you feed them or walk them round the room, and we start again. Nothing about the session depends on a baby behaving, and I have never had one where we came away with nothing.
Where does the session take place?
In my studio in Papworth Everard, ten minutes west of Cambridge, kept warm and quiet, with parking at the door.
It sits between the A14 and the A1, which often makes it a shorter drive than the centre of Cambridge. Most families come from around Cambridgeshire; some drive over from Bedfordshire and Suffolk, and a few make the trip from London.
If the drive is the thing stopping you, say so when you write. A session at your own home is possible too.
My baby portfolio
Sitting, crawling, laughing, hiding. The year when everything changes month to month.