Truly Bespoke. Behind the scenes: newborn art composite

I posted this image a few weeks back and have received so much love from it, I wanted to create a behind the scenes post about its origins. This digital newborn art was created for a strong Mama who wanted to create a special IVF concept of digital art for her little girl. She had kept all 350+ injections from her IVF journey, which to my shock, involved daily doses starting before and up until week 35 of the pregnancy. I had never encountered that level of IVF before. My jaw literally dropped.

In our pre-session consultation, we brainstormed options to create a unique piece of Lullaby Images' newborn art for her. So with this in mind, at our bespoke home newborn photography session, I made sure to photograph her beautiful baby girl in this 'composite ready' set up. Here is the straight out the camera (SOOC) image.

When I created Lullaby Images specialising exclusively in newborn photography here in Hong Kong, I dreamt about making digital art a core element of what I offer my clients. A large proportion of my newborn sessions are done at client's homes, which can be limiting in a number of ways (natural light, space, the inability to carry all my props to every photoshoot). The magic of photoshop combined with my passion for creating unique art pieces however, offers a way around this. A way to provide versatile personal newborn galleries... even if the session is photographed in the comfort of their home and not in a professional studio setting. The creative options can literally be endless, with the flexibility of creating simple or complex backgrounds that would normally take a while to stylize, and not always possible to do at a client's home.

After my session cuddling this baby girl, I got to work with the 350+ needles I took back to my home studio. I explored a few different set ups with various props and looked at several ways of stylizing the needles. It was all very clear in my mind. I wanted to have one set up that was more precise and refined, reflecting the IVF process itself and journey (turns out that is tough to achieve with that many needles though!). I also wanted another set up that used every single needle, to illustrate how epic her journey actually was. The key with all my digital composite art, is that the fluffy layer under the baby used in the photography session, is the same as my set ups here... So later when I pop the images into photoshop, it's easier to composite the two images together. Head over to my instagram to check out a quick little behind the scenes video of the photoshop magic.

The final images both have very different vibes and I've come to find that the way a person feels, when looking at these images, is quite polarising. Most seem to be more drawn to one, over the other. Which one are you drawn to?

I am living my dream and I absolutely love what I do. Every Lullaby Images newborn photography session is unique and different. Each baby I photograph already has their own preferences and their own internal schedule they follow. So in a nutshell, the baby is always boss... my newborn photography sessions are entirely baby-led, using my experience as a baby photographer (and a mother myself), to be fluid and make the session flow around how the baby feels on the day, in that moment.