When Zelda was born last year, I realized just how different newborn photography is from wedding and lifestyle photography. It’s basically a whole different league. I gained a new respect for what goes into newborn photography, and I became immensely more intrigued by the challenge of it.

Over the summer, between weddings, I started to study the ins and outs of photographing newborns, and I was able to practice with a few friend’s brand new babies. Still, I knew there were a few things that weren’t quite falling into place the way I wanted them to—the backdrop would look too wrinkled or the posing wasn’t quite there.

This November, I finally convinced myself to invest in my skills and drive down to Indiana to train with two incredibly talented newborn photographers—Leah Hoskins and Traci Shupert. These two started running the Sweet & Simple Newborn workshops earlier this year, and it was so inspiring to visit Leah’s studio and see them both in action.

Now I’m putting a call out for newborn “models” to help me refine my newborn posing skills and build out my portfolio this winter. If you or someone you know is having a baby this coming January or February, I would love to photograph the baby between 5-14 days old. Email me at allie (at) alliesiarto.com, use the subject “Newborn Model” and tell me the baby’s gender (if known) and due date. In exchange for a model release for my own portfolio, I’ll give you five high res digital images. All sessions will be at my home in East Lansing.

The photos below were styled and posed by Leah and Traci—I take no credit for the magic they worked there. I did take and edit the images.

Traci (left) and Leah (right) show us how to pose little Nash in the “froggy” pose.

Leah and Traci were sweet enough to send me home with this adorable little brown baby bonnet.