When I found out that I was pregnant, I already knew that I wanted to find a photographer to capture my baby's early days since babies grow sooo fast. I searched and searched through Google and came across numerous photographers in NJ and contacted them for quotes. They were all pretty slow in responding and all seemed too busy to really care. One thing that they all seemed to have in common was a reasonable session price but this came with a catch - the requirement of needing a minimum order of prints of at least $800. If you do your research, you'll find that each print can cost $85 and up, depending on the size of photos needed so you only end up with a few images printed in the end and you don't get the rest of the images. I realized that if I could find someone who could take pictures and provide them to me on CD so I can print them for my personal use, that would be ideal. I was lucky to come across Two Leaf Photography's website and saw that they offer a digital package with 3 mini albums at a very reasonable price. I don't know of any other company that does this, or if they do, I'm sure that they would take advantage and charge an exorbitant price. Two Leaf also had more variety of poses and props than other photography companies.
I contacted Christine Miao, the owner of Two Leaf, via e-mail a couple of months before my due date, and she was very quick in getting back to me. She was also very, very friendly. We scheduled her to come to our house for a 7 am appointment when our baby was 14 days old. Newborns are best photographed in the first two weeks when they are likely to be sleeping and less fussy.
Before the photo shoot, Christine sent us a list of things to do to prepare for it. This included making sure that the baby was fed and sleepy prior to her arrival and ensuring that the temperature in the house would be hot (we turned up our heater in the middle of summer to get it just right) to keep the baby drowsy.
Christine arrived promptly and found a suitable area in our home for the photo shoot. Not a whole lot of room is needed. She set up all of her backdrops and had all of her props ready. Our son wasn't totally asleep and I started to panic being that the time started to tick, but Christine was very relaxed and said to take my time since she allotted 3 hours for the shoot, including time for the baby to get ready. She had me make a couple of bottles of formula (if you breastfeed, you can supply breastmilk) for him. The trick is to feed the baby until he is fully satisfied and sleepy. As he would awaken, she would feed him a tiny bit more. Our baby fell asleep completely and I left Christine alone as I didn't want to distract the baby or her.
From what I could hear, Christine was very gentle with our baby and was an expert at keeping him calm and sleepy. It takes a VERY patient person to get babies to cooperate and Christine has a knack for doing that. By the time I knew it, two and a half hours had passed and she was done taking all of the photos. I didn't watch the photo shoot as I wanted the pictures to be a surprise.
Within a week or two, Christine sent me a link to the photo gallery with the pictures she took and edited. I was just floored by the photos she took. They were exactly what I wanted and just PERFECT. She didn't skimp on the various poses and props and there were so many to choose from (color and black and white). I picked out 9 images to be used in the mini albums. Soon after that, she sent me a beautifully packaged CD with the digital images, a onesie with the Two Leaf logo and the three mini albums. I ended up using some of the images for my announcement cards (Christine sells announcement cards or you can get ones through certain websites that specialize in this) and have been getting soooo many compliments as people have been receiving them. I am soooo happy that I chose Two Leaf to take my baby's newborn photos.
I cannot stop praising Christine and Two Leaf Photography enough and am telling all of my friends about them. I hope that her other customers continue to spread the word too. read more