How I Created This Tiny Gentleman Newborn Photo | Behind the Tiny Details
Sometimes a newborn setup starts with a beautiful idea to represent someone special with a rose. And then sometimes my brain takes that perfectly sweet idea and thinks, You know what this baby needs? A tiny tuxedo.
And honestly, both things can happen in the same setup.
That’s pretty much how Kingsley ended up becoming my tiny gentleman. His family brought me the meaningful part. The rose represented someone special to them. I started there, kept building, and somewhere along the way we ended up here.
Swaddled, not stirred.
From One Rose to a Tiny Gentleman
Kingsley’s newborn session was originally designed around blues and grays, with several personal details his family wanted incorporated. You can see his entire newborn session in Baby Kingsley’s Blue + Gray Studio Session here:
And if you want to fall down the visual rabbit hole, I also have Kingsley’s full Pinterest gallery here:
But this particular setup sort of took on a life of its own.
The rose was the important part. From there, I started layering in deeper colors and texture, then the tiny tuxedo look, and finally those ridiculous little black glasses. By the time it all came together, we hadn't lost the meaningful detail his family asked for—we had just built an entire little world around it.
This is one of my favorite parts of newborn photography. You don't have to come into my studio knowing exactly what you want me to create. Give me a color, a flower, an heirloom, a hobby, a person you want represented, or some random little piece of your family's story. I can start there.
Behind the Tiny Details
The funny thing about the finished photograph is that it looks relatively simple. Baby, beautiful texture, tiny outfit, rose, glasses. Done.
Except there's usually a whole lot happening underneath one of my setups that you'll never see in the finished image.
For Kingsley's little potato pose, I needed support underneath him to help me create the shape I wanted. One of my favorite things for that happens to be…a cat scratcher.
Yep. Cat furniture.
Once it's underneath all of my layers, you'd never know it was there. But that's one of the reasons I wanted to start this series. There are so many weird little tricks, tools and decisions hiding just outside the frame of a finished newborn photograph, and those are the parts I think are fun to show.
Also, I named my business Tiny Details Photography, so apparently I've been setting myself up for this series for years.
The Light
And now for my incredibly sophisticated lighting diagrams.
For setups like this, I work very close to my PLM. When I'm shooting from above, I'm basically hugging that thing to get where I need to be. The light is also much closer to baby than I think people sometimes realize.
From the top, I think about the center of my PLM being roughly in the same plane as baby's temple. From there, I can make small adjustments depending on what I want the light to do. I can push the PLM back if I want more light reaching the background, or pull it forward if I want more of that light falling across baby.
The height matters too. Looking at the setup from the side, I want the bottom of my PLM roughly in line with baby's chin, while the center of the light lines up around the temple. I don't want my light coming from underneath baby's face. I'm looking for light that comes down and across, giving me the shadows and dimension I want without flattening everything out.
These are little adjustments, but they're exactly the kind of little adjustments I make all session long.
Tiny details. Again. Apparently I really committed to the name.
What I Used
Some of the things I use are made specifically for newborn photographers. Some very much are not.
The gorgeous green texture underneath Kingsley is the Conifer Green Premium Wool Flokati from Luneberry:
Underneath my layers, I used the Petlinks Multi-Surface Cat Scratcher to help me create the support and shape I wanted for his potato pose:
And those tiny black glasses—the detail that officially took us from sweet newborn setup to Tiny Gentleman—are Black Frame Sunglasses from Build-A-Bear:
None of these are affiliate links right now. They're simply the actual things I used to create this setup.
For Photographers
One of the biggest things I've learned is to stop looking only in the newborn photography aisle.
That does not mean putting babies into random things because they're cute. It means understanding what you actually need from a setup—support, shape, texture, height, direction of light—and getting creative about how you accomplish it.
The cat scratcher is a perfect example. Nobody designed it for newborn photography. I didn't buy it because it was pretty. I use it because, underneath my layers, it helps me create what I need.
The same thing applies to lighting. Moving that PLM a little forward or backward can change what I'm getting without rebuilding the entire setup. Once you understand what your light is doing, those tiny adjustments start doing a lot of the work.
For Parents
You do not need to design your newborn session before you come see me.
Kingsley's family didn't walk into my studio and say, “We'd like our baby dressed as a tiny gentleman in sunglasses, please.” They gave me something meaningful—a rose representing someone special—and that gave me somewhere to start.
That's what I want from you.
Tell me the story. Tell me about Grandpa's hobby, the flower that reminds you of someone, the weird family joke, the color you've always loved, or the little thing you aren't even sure belongs in a newborn photograph. Sometimes we'll keep it incredibly simple. Sometimes one idea leads to another and suddenly your newborn looks like he has dinner reservations at seven.
Both are completely welcome here.
If you're planning a newborn session in Aurora, Parker, Centennial or the Denver area, you can see how my newborn sessions work and start planning yours here:
Jen's Two Cents
This is exactly why I don't want parents worrying about designing their newborn session before they come to me. You bring me the meaning. I'll figure out the photograph.
Kingsley's family brought me a rose. That's it. That was the important part. Everything else grew from there, and we ended up with an image that still represented something meaningful to his family while also becoming completely, ridiculously Kingsley.
And apparently sometimes my creative process involves Build-A-Bear sunglasses and a cat scratcher.
Worth it.
— Jennifer
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