The back of Edward's head
This is the most ironic thing I've ever written as you will probably be reading this on social media or on the internet at least and I'm about to tell you about my love / (sort of) hate relationship with social media.
I get a lot of clients asking how I share their images across social media and my website, especially ones who are booking their newborn shoots. The answer is simple, however you would like me to.
Lots of photographers charge extra to keep your images offline, they charge you for the copyright of the image. That's not how I do it. While the composition, edit and shot is mine, the subject is yours and is very precious. I totally get it and there is no extra cost.
When we were pregnant with our first son, Edward, I had a huge love affair with social media (I still do just in measured doses) and I was probably guilty of over sharing my life to my online friends. It was my Hubby, Liam, who asked how I felt about not sharing any pictures of our new baby online. It was such a weird concept to me at first but the more I thought about it and the more I listened to his reasons, the more it made perfect sense. It just felt right for us at the time, we wanted to keep those memories just for us. It's something we have done this time around with our second little one, William. I'm a newborn photographer who doesn't share photos of her newborn baby! And I'm very happy about it!
I never felt that I missed out on the social media game, I became a pro at taking pictures of the back of Edward's head or him walking away from me, it made me think more creatively about the composition of the picture. He always hated me taking his picture so it suited him just fine. I didn't need him to stand and pose or wear the perfect outfit or have perfect hair, he was just himself and I was just me, no pressure, just capturing precious moments for us.
I found it really difficult when we went to different baby groups to keep him off social media, although we didn't want his picture online we didn't want to make a big deal of it or make anyone feel uncomfortable about taking his picture. It wasn't the picture taking, it was how they were shared that we wanted control of. People must have thought I was a total weirdo when we would all be singing nursery rhymes with our little ones and the camera would come out and I would pretend to twirl around so they go the back of his head or strategically place a muslin cloth over my shoulder to hide his face!
As he got a little bit older it felt right to share our few favourite pictures of him, he's such a little character and my entire world revolves around him. We will probably do the same thing when William's a little older but who knows?
So if you've been thinking about having a photo shoot of your little one or your newborn baby and don't want your images sharing on my social media or website thats fine by me! It's also absolutely fine if you want them to be shared, tagged, blogged about and printed on flyers, whatever feels right for you!
Cordelia
