Fresh 48 Photography
Sabina squeezes her partner Royce’s hand, bracing herself on the headboard through the full intensity of an unmedicated birth, as her baby boy Shiloh was partially out. Shiloh’s body came out just a few moments after this photo was snapped. You can see significant pain on her face, as Royce comforts her and watches attentively while midwives guide Shiloh’s body out.
What’s the difference between birth photography and Fresh 48 photography? Aren’t they basically the same thing? Well, sort of. Some birth photographers consider them different things, and I’m sure there’s a variety of definitions to choose from. To me, the main difference is how much I’m posing you and giving you prompts to generate specific images I think you’re likely to LOVE.
If we don’t have enough images from your birth to provide you with a full (30+ image) album of your delivery because your birth was extremely fast or I couldn’t get there fast enough, I’ll take some extra time and give you some prompts that should give you more sweet memories of this extremely special day.
With birth photography, I default to documentary-style photography. I’m not going to tell you between contractions that you should sit up higher and tilt your chin a certain way, or lean this way, hold baby that way, etc - because I believe these photos of your labor, your birth team, and especially those sacred first moments with your baby, are best when they’re 100% raw and uninterrupted by me. I’d prefer to say absolutely nothing at all about how anyone is positioned, or telling anyone where to look. Ignore me! I want you to look back on birth photography images as a 3rd party snapshot of EXACTLY what would have happened if I wasn’t there to capture it.
I want these photos to capture the raw strength, power, intensity, joy, fear, pain, hope, excitement, and emotion in the room, without molding it to achieve a specific image result.
Anna enjoys a warm postpartum bath with her sweet baby. This was her third baby, and she went to 42 weeks. Baby finally decided she was ready to meet the world in the middle of the night. The backup midwife at this birth didn’t know I was supposed to be summoned to the birth, but our birth assistant did, and called me just a few minutes before baby was born. I drove as fast as I felt was safe and reasonable, arriving about 13 minutes later, to a silent birth center - she was already out!
Most of this labor transpired at home and in the car, so we didn’t have a whole lot of photos to choose from for the final album. The birth center was also very dark in the middle of the night, intimately lit by a few battery powered candles and a couple of floor lamps, further limiting the kinds of photos I could capture without a bright flash that, in my opinion, would be an interruption to their bonding process.
While I did my best to stay out of the way and capture moments as they happened, like the bath snuggles above, there were a few photos that I did encourage specific positions, or asked someone to hold still for just a moment while I captured a photo. In a dark birth center, working in dim light and choosing not to use a bright flash, I had to increase my aperture and ISO, and lengthen my shutter speed, to allow as much light to hit the sensor as possible - otherwise, the images are too blurry and dark. It was much easier to get “good” photos as the hours passed, and the sun came up to illuminate the birth center, but when giving birth at Utah Birth Suites, you’re not staying at the birth center for 2-3 days like you might at a hospital. They make sure you’re comfortable and ready to go home, and send you on your way, so you can recover at home with your family, and get more restful sleep in your own bed. Some of our last images in this album were more posed, bright, colorful, and sharp, because we had the cooperation of morning light coming in through the windows.
Megan nurses her baby in postpartum recovery. While this photo was quite natural and effortless, I did take a moment to smooth her tousled hair across her shoulder, and we had changed outfits a few times to get photos in various things they’d brought to the hospital. This skin to skin photo also included me draping a swaddle blanket over her baby, positioning her hand under her baby, and putting the hat on their baby. And then… I stepped back to let them do their thing. I won’t tell you to smile or “say cheese!” for an unnatural photo, but if there are specific photos you really love and would like to re-create, I’m happy to do that with you!
