Newborn Baby with Older Brother

I’m always drawn to relationships in my family photography and nowhere more than on newborn shoots. I love photographing newborn babies, it’s such a privilege to meet little ones in the first few weeks of their lives, to spend time with their families, and take pictures that I know will be treasured by the family forever. I’m so thrilled with this picture of newborn baby Jude with his older brother and hope you will like it as much as I do.

The early days and weeks fly by so quickly, babies grow so fast and suddenly they are smiling, lifting their heads, and sitting up reaching for their sibling’s toys.  Those early days are soon just a memory and so having pictures that capture that time is a wonderful thing.  I know it will be such fun in years to come for the family to sit and look at their album or the pictures on the walls, tell the boys about these early days and how their relationship developed; brothers, best friends, and probably sparring partners, as they grow up together.

Taking shots of children together in the early days is a wonderful challenge and I love to approach it in different ways to take pictures that are a bit unusual and that capture real moments of interaction.  I love the proud face of an older sibling as they hold the little ones, clearly feeling so grown up, but I also love a quiet candid moment, something real and unposed.

This is one of those moments and I love it.  The boys were such a delight to photograph and this picture seems to capture their relationship of newborn baby and older brother so well.  It’s close – look at how much they are touching, head to head and toe to toe. It’s full of curiosity – look at the older boys expression, mesmerised by his younger brother, and it’s tender – those tiny toes touching.

It’s the toes that really make this picture for me.  Older brother Frank is stroking his little brother’s foot with his toes.  You couldn’t pose a moment like that, it’s unplanned and real, a true moment of interaction in these first days of their lives as brothers.

I love how children explore the world with their feet – much more than adults they will reach out with their feet, feel the texture of things between their toes.  We loose that somewhere along the way and it’s a shame. This exploration, as so much of childhood, is all to do with wonder and exploration, the joy of learning new things and having new experiences and there’s nothing more exciting than a tiny baby sibling.

I love to think how the boys will look at this picture when they are older.  It’s a shot that will, I hope, live up to my aim for all my photography and be a picture that they boys would like to hang on their walls at university, a picture they are proud to own and that reflects their lives in a beautiful timeless fashion.  I hope that looking at this picture of newborn baby Jude with his older brother will make them laugh as teenagers and, when they are grown men, reach out and pick up the phone, go for a beer as brothers and best friends.

I hope that you will enjoy this image as much as I do.  If you would like to discover more about my natural way of photographing newborns with their siblings then do take a further look at the newborn page on my website where you can read more about my work or this handy guide where you can discover more about my relaxed approach to newborn photography at home.