Bringing home a baby during COVID is a new level of motherhood that some may never experience. With this experience comes making the difficult decision to forego professional newborn photos, and take some of your own. This blog post is all about getting the best out of the images you take on your own.

First and foremost, natural light is your friend. Use a room with lots of window light, and be aware when the most light comes into that room. If you’re taking pictures on a sunny day, and the light coming in the window is harsh, direct sunlight, I recommend grabbing a sheer curtain, you can just clip to to your existing rod, or I have a hack on tiktok using command strips! The sheer curtain helps to diffuse the light so that you have softer even light coming through.

Now that you’ve got the lighting situation handled, it’s time to wrap baby. Choose a swaddle blanket that is a solid color, this is going to photograph the best. Remember to use soft colors and no neons. Swaddle baby up just like they taught you in the hospital, no need for any fancy wrap techniques for these images, you want to do whats safest for you to do! Lay baby in the crib and shoot from above, if you need to, move the crib closer to the window to allow the maximum amount of light to reach baby. If you have a Snuggle Me, position baby next to window in the snuggle me, and make sure the light is falling down babes face, again shoot from above. If you have a moses basket you can put baby in there as well. Same technique, next to the window with the light falling down babies face like I did here!

After you have all the shots swaddled up, slowly begin to unswaddle baby and take pictures through the process while they’re stretching out! These always turn out so sweet. Once you’re finished with your session, head to the app store and download lightroom. Then you can head to ETSY where you can find loads of presets to make the best of your images. You will need to tweak the presets a bit, because no preset is a fit all.

I’ve love if you shared in the comments that these tips worked for you and how you implemented them your first weeks home with baby!

Kayla is a photographer near Danville Pennsylvania, specializing in maternity and newborn photography.