First and
foremost, before you keep on reading this, let me put this in the picture
first. What I write here has nothing against the artistic approach of newborn
portraiture (the poses type of newborn shots you always see on the internet) which has created a huge trend in
baby photography worldwide nowadays. In fact, I still love viewing those
endearing little babies being posed in a cute position, the way they curled up,
wrapped in the soft fabrics, laid in unique props and slept through the entire
session – are always so very peaceful to stare at. Most importantly, as long as the baby is
perfectly safe, I am absolutely ok with it.
You must have
recalled as well that I also started with that approach too for my newborn
shoot earlier in my career. I always had the pleasure of meeting my clients,
and to document the little people of their life is utterly an honor to me.
Being able to expand my creative trait has giving me something I didn’t want to
trade with anything else in the world – that journey – that path I took are
entirely remarkable in its very own way. From the experiences I learned. A lot.
I have spent
almost 9 years of my life devoted to this baby/child photography and I have no
regret. Along the way, I’ve seen many evolutions and evolvements in photography
industry from the first day I started - most of them contribute a positive energy
in my career. This world is full of opportunity. The photography era has flourished into
something you never expected before. You can get many inspirations in just one
click. Photography tips and techniques are everywhere on the internet. You can
get advice from many aspiring photographers worldwide from their books you
read, from the wise word they quoted in their writings. With an open heart, you
will improve your skills enormously from the constructive comments you
received. I grew with them and be a part of them too. Whenever I feel
appropriate, I applied everything I learned into my work, I tried new things –
I tried out new methods that work best for me – and many times too I get back
to the old approach again. I made mistakes and I fixed it. I success as many
times I failed. I keep on doing it because there is no way I will quit.
Time goes by.
I carry on doing the thing I love. I enjoyed doing this – meeting new people,
documenting them, expressing my creative ride through the work I produced. But
something has changed. I could feel it. Something was missing. There was an
empty segment in my heart that was in dire needs to be filled. I am talking
about my newborn photography work to be exact. So I took a temporary break from
it. I looked back to the old days, brainstorming; asking myself what was I
really want actually. I could feel there was something inside me that need to
be explore deeper, to be dig further. And so, I began the exploration of
‘finding me’ – yes in the middle of my career.
I keep on searching until one day I have this feeling I had never felt before after photographing a newborn. It was a feeling I truly love, those has lifted me up and boost my spirit higher. It was a feeling of true love. It happened to me end of 2012 when I have just finished photographing a newborn and her family – with a new approach I have ventured into – a simple and natural approach of photographing a newborn – no artistic poses, no baskets, no beanbags, no props but just the baby and her family in a lovely environment we called home. And the best advantage was I didn’t have to wait for the baby to sleep to get a timeless photograph of a newborn. I focused more on the baby herself, capturing her honest expressions – be it with her eyes wide open or when she was sleeping soundly in her mother’s arms, I documented the little tiny moments of her newborn stage – yawning, crying, frowning, and what not: because I believed small things do matter and those are the moments she and her family certainly wanted to see in the future. The connection, interaction and the relationship between the baby and her parents were the elements I mainly aimed during the photo shoot – that beautiful emotion every time you have a new baby; I had a strong urge to convey what I felt and what I saw in a visual form – photograph. She will remember this; she will feel how much she is loved – by just looking at the photographs. My heart told me so.
At that point, I finally found myself back again. Just like the photographs as you can see in these series. These are actually exactly the kind of shots that reflect my soul; my love in newborn portraiture. This it is. True, simple, honest, genuine, sincere and heartwarming images of a newborn.
With that
being said, today I brave myself to inform you this: Starting this year (2015),
I can only accept bookings for newborn portrait from the clients who have trust
in my vision to photographing their baby in the most natural approaches as what
I have described in a very long explanation above. Please view my portfolio in this link to get a clearer
message of what I am trying to tell you about this newborn photography style. Newborn
Lifestyle Portraiture is a bonus if I get the chance to capture that for you too
(please refer to my previous posts on my work of lifestyle newborn portrait ). Yup completely means no newborn posed approach after this. If you are one of them, contact me and lets set an appointment.
And together with this
opportunity, I would like to express my gratitude to all of you who have been
here with me all these while, especially to all my clients who have trust in
me, generously giving me the chances to explore my creative journey in this
field, and never get tired of my crazy ideas – you all are my motivation! And a
very special thank you to my husband; Zul for being tremendously supportive and
helping me (especially those days.. he was the one who assisted me working with
the newborns, patiently posing the newborn like what I asked for, made sure
everything was alright before I released the shutter, carried all the props to
the client’s house.. and list goes on..). Those memories we shared were so beautiful. You
are my everything!
I am one
blessed photographer and I am forever grateful.
Till then,
Zubye.
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