Bump to Baby - capturing year one

It’s been my immense pleasure and privilege to capture many journeys for parents, documenting the progression from bump to baby, up to first birthday (and often beyond, for updated family photos or with their newborn baby brother or sister as the next chapter begins).

Each story is unique and for each family, the experience is different. It’s such a wonderful way to capture your baby’s first year, and by the end of it we are all so relaxed, the sessions are a warm hearted catch up, like seeing a friend who happens to have a camera.

It was no different for Simone & Gary, and their daughter Coral.

They contacted me for details fairly early on in their pregnancy, tentatively. They’d experienced a miscarriage before and wanted to wait a bit before booking, so we agreed to pencil it in and confirm later.

It was great to hear back from them a couple of months later, with the go ahead to finalise their maternity session. They were in the process of getting a house in Cornwall, and with Gary working away a lot of the time it was a matter of scheduling it in during the brief windows they’d both be down in Cornwall.

I came to learn that they are absolute sea-lovers. We ended up doing 3 of their 4 sessions at the beach - I’m sure we would have done their newborn shoot by the ocean too had it not been mid-winter.

The maternity session

Newquay is a special place for them. Gary proposed to Simone at Crantock beach on top of the dunes (we took a photo of them all there at Coral’s sitter session). They got married in Newquay and had their wedding photos taken at Little Fistral. This is where they wanted their maternity photos too, which we made happen despite some severe weather, illness & having to reschedule to the last moment before they had to head back home for Gary to make his flight for work.

It was kind of cold, windy and wild - but Simone was amazing and I soon came to learn that she has no qualms about getting into the water, in all seasons. We had a fab session, and they loved the photos.

The Newborn shoot

Somehow during the month between their maternity & newborn session, Gary and Simone had managed to move house and have a baby - on Boxing Day!

We met at my studio early January and had the most lovely newborn session. They were chilled parents and it was nice to catch up and enjoy being in the newborn bubble with them for a bit.

They actually came again to the studio about a month later with some of their close relatives for an extended family session in honour of Coral’s arrival. It was also lovely !

Sitter session

We scheduled Coral’s sitter session for a summer’s morning at 8am, and it turned out to be during a mini heat wave. The weather was glorious! We started up on the dunes, where Gary had proposed to Simone and then made our way own to the estuary. Another beautiful session and Coral was very cute and cheerful - my favourite age!

First Birthday photoshoot

We had the first birthday session booked in on Coral’s actual birthday on Boxing Day, but the mizzle had come in and we had to do a last minute reschedule.

Gary & Simone had parents visiting for Christmas and thought it would be nice to include them in the session, so we moved it to a few days later, and despite a more-than-forecast damp start to the day, by the time we got started the sky began to clear and we had a beautiful session down in Charlestown.

They even brought a cake for Coral and we took some photos of her with it on the harbour wall.

It was a wonderful end to a memorable year! My heart was full and I can’t wait to see how their mini album looks when it arrives from the printers.

Simone left this lovely review at the end:

Michelle has been absolutely fabulous, we couldn’t have asked for a better photographer to capture from maternity and then our first year with our little one. We have always wanted beach/outdoor images and Michelle has been flexible around timings and weather to make it happen for us. She interacted so well with our little one from the get-go which made the sessions so much easier. Would highly recommend for maternity, newborn, family, sitter & first birthday. We love all the images Michelle has captured of us and when it comes to choosing prints it’s always hard to pick! Thank you for sharing the first year (well, slightly longer as we did maternity shoot!) with us and capturing each special milestone with us.

To book or enquire about a session with me, or my Watch Me Grow package, get in touch - I’d love to learn more.