Without a doubt, the most rewarding part of my job is watching the tiny babies that I photograph grow up and turn into their own little characters. 

Whilst my main focus on newborn photography , I absolutely love photographing families too.
I often see babies come back for their first birthday, but not always again after that, so for the few families who have chosen me to document their growing babies and families I am forever grateful, this is my ultimate reward.

One particular little client has recently been to me for his 10th photography session, and he is only 3.5 years old! I wanted to share some of his beautiful memories with you all from his photography sessions over the past 3 years. He has had every sort of session that I offer from newborn to family to all the special ones in-between; daffodils, bluebells and even his watermelon smash for his 1st birthday.

I first met him back in 2017 for his new born photography session after meeting his parents at a baby event that I attended in Upton just beforehand when they were expecting him.

Later on that year he was my first ever outdoor Christmas baby! 

In 2018 he came came for a bluebell photography session. Bluebell photo sessions in Dorset are my most popular outdoor sessions.  I do mini sessions in evenings in April/May.

Shortly after the bluebells was his first birthday session. I was so excited that his Mum chose my signature watermelon smash session to celebrate.

I was lucky enough to see him again for a third time in 2018 for his Christmas photography session.

Our next session was in Spring 2019 , when I started offering Daffodil photography sessions. 

Shortly after that we met again at the Bluebells.

In the summer of 2019 he turned 2 and we celebrated with a family photography session at Sandbanks beach, my favourite outdoor location in Dorset.

We met for a 4th time in 2019 for his third Christmas photography session.

in 2020 Covid got in our way of so many things and we almost missed out entirely this year! But we just managed to get a mini session in just before Christmas, yay! 

Here is to capturing many more adventures as you grow! I can't wait for our next session together whenever that may be.

If you are would like me to capture the next stage in your family's journey I am taking provisional bookings from March onwards. Please do take a look around the newborn, baby, and family sections of my website.

Well here we are back in lockdown, again! 
I first wrote this blog back in April last year but I thought I would re do it as it might be useful to more people now ( unfortunately) 

Giving birth to your baby during a world wide pandemic is no mean feat! But you are creating history right now, bringing a child into the world at this time is heroic, please do not forget how amazing you are , you can do this!  

Unfortunately, you will not be able to get any professional newborn photographs taken at this time. So I have written a simple guide to help you with taking some photographs of your own baby at home.  

I photograph babies up to 5 months here at Samantha Prewett Photography in Poole in a similar way to newborns, you can read more about this in my baby section. I would love to see you and your baby after this is all over and the world has started to return to a safe place to be.

You really do not need any props to take some lovely photographs at home yourself. Just a couple of blankets. Find somewhere in your home with lots of natural light, turn off your flash and any other lights you have in your home. If you have a nice rug you can lay your baby on the floor. If you have a favourite outfit you can dress them in that, or if you want to take their clothes off for some photos make sure that it is nice and warm in your home first. I heat up my home for a few hours before any newborn photography session.
Don't try and attempt any "poses" that you have seen newborn photographers create. We have had lots of training and many years of experience so we know how to safely position your baby without risking their safety. ​

This is one of my all time favourite newborn photographs. I love taking simple, close up photos of newborns, especially when they are awake. I find the morning is usually when they are most content and happy so if you can try some photos as early as you can, as soon as you have enough daylight. For a natural, uncluttered background, simply lay baby on a light coloured blanket or throw. If you have a special one that you would like to use, all the better for those precious memories.

If you follow me you will know that I love baby feet! There is nothing cuter than tiny little baby toes. So make sure you take some photos of your babies feet and hands. If you have another adult or other children at home, you can get them to hold babies feet or hands in their hands whilst you take a few photos so that you can see how small they are.  

Although you may not feel very photogenic straight after having a baby, trust me you look amazing. The new mum (and Dad) look is something you will definitely want to remember.
I simply love this photo so much, Dad was almost asleep here, you can really feel the closeness in the photograph.
Whilst most parents chose to have parent and baby photos when they come to me for their newborn photography sessions, not all do. The ones that don't still have some photos on their phones of them with their baby. Trust me you will regret it in years to come if you do not. Even if you are on your own with your baby, the wonders of modern technology allow you to take selfies on your phone, just remember to hold the phone so it is looking down on you and your baby not up your noses. 

This is the most important piece of advice that I can offer you.
There is nothing more precious than a printed photo book or a photo album, or even a shoebox full of photographs to look back on over the years. Photographs become so much more valuable over time, trust me , my children are now 9 and 11 and they love looking at all of our photo albums from when they were smaller. 
My professional printing lab was close for a while back in the first lockdown so I have given the FreePrints app a go for our scrapbook photos, I have to say I was impressed. Remember to chose "Matt" finish so your photos are kept free from fingerprint marks.

You can read my Covid-19 statement here, which will let you know what to expect if you are booked in with me and your baby arrives during this pandemic.

Well, here I am celebrating 8 years of my beautiful amazing business that I love so much.

The last year has been challenging to say the least (as it has for all of us!) and this is not yet the end, but I am still looking ahead to better times.
​
I have been fortunate enough over the past year to have been able to work a bit in between the lockdowns and capture some beautiful memories for many of you. I would like to thank each and every one of you who have booked me over the past 8 years , the last year in particular. 
With no work at the moment, what better time to reflect upon the past years and what I have achieved, what has changed, and what I hope will happen in the future. 

I could write forever about my business over the past 8 years, and I do easily get carried away as I am so passionate about what I do , so I have decided to stick with a few highlights:

* I launched my family photography business in January 2013. In September 2015 my youngest started school so I was able to take my business to full time. 
* In October 2013 I went on my first newborn photography training course, I truly caught the baby photography bug, this was the start of my new found passion which is still going strong today!
*I photographed my last wedding at the end of 2015 and have never ever looked back! Newborn babies and family photography is exactly where I want to be.
*Little packs of love- I spent 2 years with a dozen or so other local baby businesses creating goody bags full of exclusive offers and samples for our clients. Unfortunately this sort of fizzled out but I stil enjoy putting together beautiful little goody packs for my clients now.
* Mothercare expectant parent events - these played a huge part for 3 years of my business. I simply loved meeting so many new parents to be and talking about my newborn photography.
* Expectant and New parent event in the Eco Hub 2019 - I organised and ran my first event in the Dolphin Centre in Poole last October and it went so well that I had planned to do it again in April 2020 but unfortunately like most things, Covid put a stop to that.
* 2020 The year no one will ever forget. Covid put a stop to so many businesses last year and it continues into this year.  I did however manage to get myself a plastic free business award which I am particularly proud of, and a page in the Daily Echo about this too. Along with a few other local baby businesses we had planned to do a year long string of Expectant Parent Events at Smyths Toy Superstores but these have been put on hold also.
I also managed to get a beautiful video made in 2020 which I love, even if we are wearing face masks!

This year I am celebrating 8 years of Samantha Prewett Photography with a month long Facebook event with lots of competitions, giveways and games, you can join in here:
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Samantha Prewett Photography's 8th Birthday Celebrations | Facebook

To celebrate 8 years, I have a fantastic offer on this month for any 2021 session that is booked in January. You can find all of my price lists on the website. This offer is valid for ANY session; Maternity, newborn , baby, first birthday photo sessions, or family.

Please do get in touch if I can help you create some beautiful family memories to cherish this year, I would love to hear from you.

2020 wow what a year , one thing is certain, there will be no other quite like it that is for sure! 
​
I don't know about you but I am really looking forward to Christmas this year, we definitely need something to plan and celebrate don't we. What better way to capture special memories than an outdoor Christmas family photography session in the beautiful Wareham Forest in Dorset.

I have been doing outdoor Christmas photography sessions for a few years now. The children always  love it as we get to have a walk around the forest finding nice places to stop for photos. So I wanted to take this opportunity to share some of the lovely photos with you and hopefully get you into the Christmas spirit (if you are not already)

I always like to share example sessions so you get to see photos from just one session to know what you can expect rather than just my favourites. These photos are from a Christmas photography session that I did last year in Wareham Forest, they were both amazing, loved having their photo taken and really seemed to enjoyed themselves.

I have already done some Christmas photography sessions this year, and had planned to do some more throughout November. Unfortunately ,like most of this year, Covid had other plans so we are not able to do any in November at all due to the second lockdown. I am planning to do more when lockdown is lifted so please do get in touch via my contact page if you are interested in some beautiful 2020 Christmas memories.

Summer may well now be a distant memory but I still love to look back to recent sessions and look forward to lots more summer family memory making next year across the beautiful Dorset.

This beautiful family photography session at Hengistbury Head in Bournemouth, took place just a few weeks ago, on what was surely the last day of summer. We were so fortunate with the beautiful weather on the day, at some points it was even too bright to take photos!

Summer beach family photography sessions are definitely one of "my things"
​Growing up and living on the Dorset coast has made me want to capture families at these beautiful locations creating beautiful, natural memories that I know will be cherished for a lifetime.

I usually take families to Sandbanks, which is the closest beach to me, and fortunately one of the most beautiful in the whole world, but Dorset has the most beautiful coastline and there are many more stunning locations to explore. This lovely family requested a session at Hengistbury Head in Bournemouth, which I have to say did not disappoint! I grew up near there so it was so lovely to go back again. 

I adored this photography session so much, it was such a beautiful day and brought back so many wonderful memories for me of growing up in the area. I am looking forward to taking my children there soon to share the beautiful location with them. It is always extra special when I have already photographed the family and I look forward to seeing how much their little one(s) have grown.

I first met this lovely family back in January for their newborn photography session. It was so wonderful to see how much their gorgeous little man has grown this year, and I can't wait to see them again soon to capture the next stage in their story. It means so much to be asked back to photograph families as they grow. This is definitely the most rewarding part of my job.

If you would like to find out more about my family photography sessions in Dorset, you can find lots more information on the family section of my website. or please get in touch for a chat. 

When you are looking to book a newborn photographer it is always a good idea to look at examples of full sessions not just their favourites hand picked for their online portfolios. Whilst I hope that my website gives you a feel for my natural style and exactly what to expect, I always think it is nice to share an entire gallery every so often so you get to see an example of everything you get not just my "favourite" images that I choose to share on social media and on my website portfolios. 

I have been doing this twice a year over the past few years and if you would like to see some other examples of full newborn galleries, I have copied some links at the bottom of this blog post for you.

I have chosen (with the kind agreement of his parents) this gorgeous little man for my recent example newborn gallery as they chose to have parent and baby photos too so you can see some examples of these images aswell. He was just 10 days old when he came to see me for his newborn photography session.

A lot of people think of newborn photography to be just cute curled up photos of sleepy babies. Yes this is some of what I do, but I love to see them awake too! It is my job to beautifully capture your precious little one just as they are, if they want to sleep that is great, but likewise if they are awake for their entire session that is absolutely fine too!
This lovely little man gave us both. 

Although I have a large selection of beautiful, natural props here, parents sometimes choose to bring some personal items with them to their newborn photography sessions. You are more than welcome to do this, but please do check with me first if they are large items. This lovely family brought along a few special items to their session.

Mum and Dad sent me some of their favourite images over before their session, so I could incorporate the props and colours they liked during their newborn photography session.

We even managed to get a windy smile, awwwwwww.

If you choose to have parent and baby photos during your newborn photography session you will probably end up with quite a large gallery to choose your favourites from! 
This is because I like to show these in colour and black and white, and where I do not show every single shot I have taken of your baby, I tend to include ALL of the parent ones as I know you will like to choose the way you look and every one has their own opinions on which photo of themselves they will like the best. As you can see here, there is quite the variety!

I would like to thank this lovely family for allowing me to share this session, and I hope they will look back on this blog in years to come ( I do not delete old blog posts) with fond memories as their gorgeous little one grows.

If you would like to read more about my newborn photography sessions, you can find out more in the newborn area of my website, or you can see these other examples of full newborn galleries that I have blogged over the past few years:

​https://www.samanthaprewettphotography.co.uk/blog/full-newborn-photography-gallery-from-february-2020

https://www.samanthaprewettphotography.co.uk/blog/february-25th-2019

https://www.samanthaprewettphotography.co.uk/blog/a-full-newborn-photography-session-from-january-2018

https://www.samanthaprewettphotography.co.uk/blog/a-full-gallery-from-a-recent-newborn-photography-session

I recently got my first business award and I wanted to share it with you!

This isn't one of those "business of the year etc" award. To me this award means so much more. I didn't need to beat anyone or attend any fancy award dinners to receive it (which neither of which are me at all!) and any other local businesses can apply for one. If you are a local Poole business I want to encourage you to do just that, which is why I have written this blog.

The first thing that I needed to do was complete a plastic audit of my business. What single use plastic do I use? Now, I am already very conscious of plastic waste and I have always kept single use plastic to a minimum right from the beginning. However, upon completing this, it brought some items to my attention that I had not particularly thought about before. I began to think how I could either get rid of these or make a swap for non plastic. For me, most of my single use plastic comes from packaging when I send out my photographs to my clients. I started off with the following 3 swaps:

1. I was sending my larger photographic prints to my clients in plastic print bags. I decided to trial sending some single prints out just as they are in card envelopes, and sets of prints wrapped up in tissue paper. I was concerned that they might get scratched, but I was informed by my clients that they were indeed fine. 

2.   Parcel tape. This was such a simple swap , one that I could not believe I have not done before! I use a lot of plastic parcel tape as every package that I send to my clients arrives inside a postal box that I tape up. It was so simple swapping to paper parcel tape. It is actually stronger, looks nicer and can of course by recycled!

3.  Chocolate camera packaging. Again, I was using plastic bags for these. I go through quite a lot so it was concerning the amount of plastic that was ending up in the bin. I have now swapped to paper sweetie bags that I pop them into and seal with a paper sticker.

It was a little odd receiving an award from Rosie from Go Pladdle during the Covid-19 pandemic. We managed a long socially distanced chat and a lovely photograph taken by my son. What better place to meet than at Baiter, just opposite from where I live and a place that my family and I love to do beach cleans.

Whilst I have already achieved my award. I am not 100% free of single use plastic just yet and I need your help!  Do you have any ideas what I could replace disposable puppy pads/ bed mats with? They need to be very absorbent, thin and plain (not bright colours) as I use them underneath my fabrics that I put babies onto when they are not wearing a nappy. 

Go Pladdle are working with Surfers Against Sewage to aim to make Poole a plastic free community. They still need more Poole based businesses to apply to become plastic free before they can achieve this. You can find out more by visiting the Surfers Against Sewage website.

If you do not have your own business , you can still help out. Every single change or plastic swap helps the environment. Wouldn't it be amazing if everyone who read this article committed to make 3 swaps, imagine the impact that would have? What plastic can you get rid of or swap in your life?

Last week I had the absolute pleasure of finally (after re arranging due to covid-19 and bad weather!) photographing this gorgeous little girl celebrating her first birthday by having a watermelon smash session.

I have been doing these sessions for a couple of years now and I absolutely love them! They are a fun, healthy alternative to a cake smash to celebrate your baby turning one. I pride myself in offering these fun, unique, natural watermelon smash photography sessions to babies living in Dorset who come for me  to capture this special time for their families. 

I have done cake smashes in the past at the request of clients but I always find that babies are much more into the watermelon smashes. To them it is a much more natural as they will more than likely have eaten (and loved) watermelon so they know what to do with it. I often get involved in helping them mush it all up which everyone loves and it can get quite messy! 

I love that these photography sessions, although they are pre set up, are completely naturally posed as I get to take a step back and professionally record your little one enjoying themselves. I sometimes even take a little video during the session. I often get involved with helping baby dig in the "cake" However, this particular session took place during the covid-19 pandemic so I had to get the parents to do that this time, along with a few other small changes including unfortunatly not having a splash session at the end.

This lovely little girl definetly enjoyed herself, and I loved capturing some beautiful memories that I know will be treasured by her family for a lifetime.

If you have a little one turning one (or any other age, I have done this for older children too) soon and would like some more information, please check out my first birthday photography section of my website where you can see lots more lovely photos including the smash and splash session that I will be able to resume after covid-19.  I can still do watermelon smashes at the moment but without a splash session at the end.

As things are "slowly" starting to get back to normal, what ever normal now is; I have finally started to pick up my camera again and it feels so good! 

I have had many newborns arrive over the past 2 months who have pre booked with me, it makes me so sad that I can not capture those first few early days and weeks for the families, but it has just not been possible at all due to the corona virus crisis. 

After the news of us passing the peak of the virus, although it is still not safe to resume my full newborn sessions, I offered to drop by my clients homes and take a few photos of them outside their homes. 

Doorstep portrait sessions have been very popular in the photography community especially across America, but I didn't feel this was something I could get involved with for many reasons of which I will not list here. However, I did want to do something a little special for my clients who have already pre booked and babies have arrived as they will have to wait a while for their session.

So last week, I started travelling across Dorset (on different days!) to photograph some of these families and I wanted to share some of the photos with you from one of the sessions.

I only spent a short amount of time with each family and I kept my distance. It was really hard though not getting baby cuddles, I will just have to wait a bit longer!
These families have been through so much, having a baby is the hardest (but best!) thing you can ever do, but the current situation makes it that bit more difficult. I am so happy that from this week they can meet their extended family (in small groups) outdoors and finally show off their little bundles properly, even if cuddles do need to wait a bit longer. 

If you have had your baby during Covid-19 and have been holding off booking in, I still photograph babies up to 5 months old in a similar way to newborns ,and should you wish to book in, I would be happy to visit you at home to take a few photos likes these for you now whilst we wait until it is safe to have the full newborn photography session. I have not charged for these newborn doorstep sessions and all digital images are emailed to you. You can find out more information on my latest Covid-19 update. 
I have also written a blog with tips on how you can photograph your own newborn at home, which also features a competition to win a free family photography session for October.
​Please do get in touch or have a look around my website if you would like to find out more about my photography services. 
Thank you to this lovely family for allowing me to share their photos on my website, I can't wait for our proper photography session soon.

I write this blog at a very strange time, the strangest time of my entire 34 years of life so far. 

The world has stood still, covid-19 is taking over so I wanted to spread a little pre corona virus joy with you all.

This will be my last blog for a while, featuring the last family photography session that took place before the country entered lock down. 

This was our 4th photography session together! I have had the absolute pleasure of photographing this lovely family since their little boy was born 2 years ago. We have had newborn, bluebell and daffodil sessions! Their walls must look absolutely gorgeous at home. 

As you can see, this particular family photography session took place at a beautiful daffodil patch right near me in Poole, Dorset. We got some lovely photos of the children with the beautiful yellow backdrop. Mum and Dad thoughtfully dressed them in lovely rainbow clothes which looked fantastic, and I was so pleased so see the same yellow wellies that were worn last year too! Maybe they will keep them to be passed down to little brother too! 

At the end of the session we stopped on the walk back at this lovely spot for a few family photos. This beautiful session was such a welcome break in what is going on in the world at the moment, it truly represents what is most important, spending time with your loved ones. I feel so privileged that I get to capture these beautiful memories for so many lovely Dorset families as they grow.

See you on the other side, take care and stay safe everyone.

If you would like some beautiful family memories in the beautiful outdoors in Dorset, you can find out more information in the family photography section of my website.