Newborn Session in Wellesley, MA | Photography by Kristen Swain

At the start of the new year, I had the pleasure of capturing a newborn session at Callie and Brian’s home in Wellesley. We immediately bonded over our shared love of dogs, with their furry friend, Bella, not wanting to be left out of the photo fun (which we fully embraced!).

We spent most of our time in the nursery which, having windows on three out of four walls, was bathed in glowy morning light. Callie had plenty of adorable outfits lined up for Baby Rose, in addition to a gorgeous bassinet that had been passed down through multiple generations of her family – so special to incorporate!

We’d made a last-minute decision to move this session from Saturday to Sunday when we woke up to very dark skies Saturday morning — not ideal for indoor photos. Well, it turns out Baby Rose (or her skin, rather) had something say about this schedule change! I got a slightly worried text from Callie Saturday night. Rose had started to break out with a little bit of baby acne; should we still move forward with photos, or push them back a few weeks? Perfectly hilarious timing! If we’d been able to shoot that morning, of course, it would have been a non-issue. Zero regrets on the change though: great light is always my number one priority for your photos.

Side note, in case you’re curious about this baby acne issue and newborn sessions: I will usually recommend scheduling newborn sessions outside the 3-5 week age range because this is when baby acne tends to show up. In this case, Rose was still a few days under 3 weeks, so I’d hoped we (and her skin) would be in the clear, but like most things in life, whether it’s going to show up, and if so when, is never totally predictable. The good news is that ultimately, as I told Callie that night over text, it’s really nothing to stress over – we can easily clean-up most breakouts in editing. And it turned out Rose’s skin looked great the next day anyway, thanks to a gentle ointment recommended to Callie by a family member (which I still need to get the name of, because it definitely seems to have worked!).

I loved watching Callie and Brian caring for baby Rose together, and getting to see what a loving, supportive and affectionate couple they are. Witnessing tender moments between couples as they celebrate the start of a major new phase in their lives is so incredibly special, and I don’t take for granted being invited to witness and share in some of these intimate moments.

I can’t end this post without a shoutout to the guys who also helped make this session a success. Both Callie’s husband Brian and my own, Tim, showed up big time that day. Brian was so adoring with his wife and baby (which makes for such special photographs), and he also brought his posing A-game (hands in pockets if you’re not doing something else with them — a tip he remembered from being photographed at their wedding!). And my husband Tim came to my rescue that day, delivering some forgotten equipment (camera bag mix-up!) which really saved me. Not only that, but while I worked, he took care of the grocery shopping I was planning to handle on my way home. Major husband points were earned by both of these guys on this sunny winter morning!

Newborn Session in Wellesley, MA | Photography by Kristen Swain

Newborn Session in Wellesley, MA | Photography by Kristen Swain