Welcome to the world, Zak Phoenix. Our beautiful baby boy came to join us at the beginning of April and our lives have changed forever.
Some thoughts that I’ve had over the past month include:
“How is it possible that we have gone through that many nappies in a week?”
“I’ve managed to get myself dressed and it’s not even midday. Major achievement!”
“What did we do with our days before he was here?”
Since Zak was born, I have taken hundreds of photos. Actually, I’ve probably taken thousands. To the untrained eye, they’re practically the same photo – he’s lying down asleep in all of them because that’s pretty much all he does these days. But to us, they show the journey that Zak’s going through. He changes so much each day and it’s so important to me to capture each moment as much as we can. We won’t get these precious days back and I want to be able to remember them clearly.
As much as I like to think that I’m class at taking photos and giving them a quick edit before posting them online, my photography skills on an old iPhone 6 don’t really match up to those of a professional. I was so pleased when North East family photographer Fiona Saxton Photography got in touch about a newborn baby photoshoot. Fiona works across North East England (but can also travel!) and when we saw her portfolio, I knew straight away that we wanted her to capture Zak’s early days.
What we really loved about Fiona’s work is that it’s not posed. It’s all natural and so relaxed. As someone who prefers to be taking the photos rather than being in them, I know that this approach is much more comfortable. Indeed, it’s the style of photography we had at our wedding, so there’s a bit of a theme going on with our major life events!
Fiona came to our house for the shoot when Zak was just over 2 weeks old. Thankfully by that time we’d worked out how to hold him and things. I’m not sure I would have wanted someone taking photos of me in the very early days when I wasn’t really sure what I was doing! Also, I never knew how pleased I’d be about having it in our house – getting a 2-week-old and 2 sleep-deprived parents out of the house requires a military operation and a huge amount of forward-planning!
The whole photoshoot was so, so relaxed. Zak was definitely in charge – when he wanted milk, we stopped for milk. When he wanted to fill his nappy, we stopped to change him. When he wanted to wriggle around, we all sat and watched him having the time of his life!
I’m so pleased that we have these high-quality photos of us with Zak in his early days. And I can’t wait to show his friends at his 18th birthday party!
This newborn photoshoot was gifted by North East family photographer Fiona Saxton Photography.
You can see more of Fiona’s amazing work on her website (fionasaxtonphotography.com), on Instagram (@fionasaxtonphotography) and on Facebook (Fiona Saxton Photography)
