There are times when moms will bring in a special item and ask me to photograph their baby in or with it, and sometimes I can do that and other times it’s really unrealistic to expect the baby to settle happily with it. This sweet mama said she attempted to do her own newborn photos and when she completely lost her patience with it she called me. She really wanted her cute baby boy to fit into his dad’s cowboy hat but he got too big too fast! I pulled up some images of babies in cowboy hats. Some are babies just crumpling these great Stetsons, because babies are heavy, haha! What do you expect them to do? But some were these perfect images of babies laying on beautifully crisp hats, and I pointed at all of these and I said, it’s no problem, I can make an image like this for you, but there is no way I am going to put the baby in that hat.

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How do you get babies into impossible things? The magic of careful lighting, careful posing, and Photoshop. I have been working with Photoshop for sixteen years, and I have studied compositing through online courses and it can make things really fun, when you get to make someone’s dreams come true.

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It is also wonderful when you can do this with a baby who pooped constantly. Like 100% of the time he was pooping and I was dying laughing. He pooped all over the floor and down his mom’s shirt during these parent shots! It doesn’t bother me at all, it’s just part of handling newborns. Poop and burps and all kinds of hilarious noises and fluids just come with the territory. That’s why it helps to be a mom. I am so used to it at this point. I also have piles of cloth diapers and special, gentle soaps for handling just this sort of mess!

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Which is a good thing because then I was able to make this darling super comfy.

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