Baby Photographs and Footprints

The much anticipated arrival of a new baby is one of life's must profound milestones for a family; for the mum, father, siblings, extended family and of course, the baby. Newborn babies are tiny, totally dependent little beings inspiring huge bonds of affection and love, fascination and preoccupation.

Make time to catch time
In the first few exciting, and often tiring, weeks of a new baby's life it is easy to get pre-occupied with the baby's immediate demands and needs. However, this truly is a once in a lifetime moment of your child's life. It won't be long before you are struggling to remember just how tiny they once were and wondering how on earth they once fitted into size 0000 clothing. Taking time out from your new routine to mark the birth of your baby during this time and to create long-term memories of your baby's first few hours, days and weeks, is something that in years to come, you will be pleased to have done.

There are a number of ways to mark the birth of a new baby and to create life-long memories of that special time including:

• Photographs and videos
• Footprints and scrap booking albums

Taking photographs of your new baby
Taking photographs of a new baby is almost as essential as buying the nappies. Family and friends, whether they live around the corner or on the other side of the world, will always want to see photos of your new addition.

Baby brag albums
'Baby brag' albums have been created especially for parents and grandparents who want to show off photographs of the new arrival to their friends, acquaintances and just about everybody they may meet. These baby brag albums are typically designed to hold about twenty 6x4 inch-sized photographs and to be as portable and light as possible. There are available in most large stores that sell frames, photo albums and baby paraphernalia.

Getting the best results for baby photography
Having established that there is going to be a demand for photos of your new baby, you may want to think about the quality and creativity of your photographs. Deciding to commission the services of a professional photographer, who can capture these precious moments for you is one option.

Advantages of using a professional portrait photographer

• The results can be beautiful and creative photography that captures intimate moments between you and baby, photography that may be taken especially with black and white or sepia printing in mind and which uses composition and light effectively.
• You can pick and choose the best photographs with the help of a professional.
• Photographs can be provided in print and in digital formats.
• Often photographers can provide high quality frames and photo albums, which may not be easily available.

Disadvantages of using a professional photographer

• You may not feel comfortable with someone you don't know very well.
• You may not have the time or energy to visit a photographer's studio.
• This may be too expensive, especially at a time when you are buying additional items such as nappies, bottles, baby clothing and furniture.
• You may spend a lot of time and money on photographs and not like the results.
• Your photographer may have a list of stock styles and end up making your baby look like every other newborn baby in a 'chocolate-box' style advert.

Getting creative with your own baby photography
A cheaper, perhaps more enjoyable alternative is to go DIY with your baby photography. It is wise to purchase a digital camera well before the delivery if possible. This gives you plenty of time to familiarise yourself with the camera's settings, (especially more complex options such as videoing) and get in some practise. Now is not the best the time to 'cut heads off' and produce blurry, out of focus prints. Many cameras have a setting for 'Kids and Pets', which uses a quick shutter speed to help you capture an eye blink moment – this is definitely a setting worth practising with, as quick shutter speeds can also result in blurred pictures.

The great advantage of DIY baby photography is that you can pick your moments, from the birth in the delivery room itself to a sleepy start in the early hours of the morning. You can have a lot of fun trying out a few creative ideas of your own, or some of these:

• Shots of baby's first bath using water ripples as your backdrop.
• Close up shots of baby's hands, feet and face – use an adult finger or hand, or familiar object, to provide a sense of scale.
• Photographs of baby, siblings and parents taken from unusual angles or perspectives such as hands only (think of 'one potato, two potato, three potato, four') or a horizontal view of feet only (showing the huge difference in each person's foot size).

Baby footprints
Talking of little feet, another increasingly popular way of recording how tiny a baby is at birth and at how quickly they grow during the first few weeks and months, is through baby footprints. Having your baby's footprints captured in ink or in plaster can also be a lovely and creative way to record your baby's size. It's not quite Hollywood Boulevard, but who knows where your baby may end up one day...

Capturing baby footprints in ink is also a very moving way to commemorate the birth of a baby who was stillborn. Having a lasting memory of this precious moment, although incredibly sad, can help families remember and grieve for their loss. Some hospitals will arrange to do this for you and will perhaps give you additional mementoes such as the baby's nametag.

Baby scrapbooking
If you are able to hold onto all of the little things you receive when your baby is born, such as nametags, booties, congratulations cards, (photographs of) flowers and gifts, you can create a lovely scrapbook to remember this time by. Many craft shops provide scrapbooking necessities and magazines, which suggest lots of different and creative ways to present this material.

Browse the NZS.com directory for more information on baby memorabilia.

Do you want to write for NZS.com, New Zealand's top Web directory? We are looking for New Zealand writers for our unique new article writing program - whereby you can write and submit articles for our website, and you will earn 50% of the revenue from the advertising on your article's page. Check out the Article Authors homepage to apply now!

Family images from Flickr: Baby Boots, Kids Classroom and Hands.