At The Pod Photography we have come to be known as the “Baby’s First Year” Portrait studio for our West Los Angeles clients. Of course the majority of our clients come back to see us when the babies are over a year old (we especially love it when they come back to see us with baby number two or three!) but we tend to see clients the most during their baby’s first year.

We absolutely LOVE to capture the different phases of the amazing first year of a child’s life.  During this time, there are four developmental phases that are key times to document.

The first, and in my opinion most special, time is the newborn baby phase that takes place when the babies are under ten days of age. At this age babies are still new, sleepy and have’t woken up to the world yet. This is when we get those cute snuggled up poses, the funny bucket shots and the oh-so-coveted “baby holding her face in her hands” classic newborn pose. This is also an amazing opportunity to capture those tiny details like newly grown baby finger nails, un-trimmed hair, wrinkly feet and all those other fleeting details of a fresh little baby.

Next up is the four month age. This is when babies re holding their heads up nice and strong, are comfortable on tummy time.  This is also when babies are so smiley and just laugh and coo at every silly face and high pitched talking you give them. We love it!! The baby who inspired this blog post was four months old when he came for his session – and a you can see, his little expressions and mix of big boy outfits and soft naked baby photos are just incredibly precious.

Then comes the sitting up, drooly teething baby phase around 7-8 months. Now that little sleepy, crawly baby is up and at ’em wanting to move, get attention and clap their hands in the excitement of their new sitting accomplishment. This is an awesome age for us photographers because most babies sit happily as we sing and entertain them at our West Los Angeles portrait studio.

First birthday sessions are also fun because there’s so much going on! Now baby is standing and sometimes walking, they are starting to assert their independence and keeping them still for their photo shoot isn’t quite so easy. We’ll often have one person dedicated to just picking up the baby and putting them back in position since baby will often walk or crawl off the set every few second. Whew, what an arm work out! The cake smash is the culmination of the first year, and we love to watch the babies make a mess and smash their custom four inch SusiCakes. We always run a warm bubble bath after their done since that frosting ends up squished in toes, fingers and hair!

We absolutely love documenting the first year of a babies life and all of the miraculous changes that they go through.  If you are interested in having our photographers capture your baby’s photos – give us a call at 310-391-4500 and check us out online at www.ThePodPhoto.com