A day in the life of a newborn and family photographer in Kent

Hey everyone. I'm Maria, a mum and a busy motherhood photographer in my home county of Kent, England. Not a day passes where I don't thank on all the stars that I get to do this for a living. Young me would be so proud I've found a way to turn my creativty into a profitable business for myself and my family. But with that, does of course come hard work. Hard but fun! I thought I'd share below what a typical day looks like for me, as a Kent family photographer.

Precious newborn shoes at a maternity session

The day before;

A shooting day always starts the day before for me. Running a business and parenting a 3 year old leaves little time for fixing mistakes, so organisation is definitiely key! The night before a shoot I'll always charge my camera battery and spares and check both my camera bodies are working fine and loaded with fresh SD cards. If it's a studio session, I'll deep clean the area and get all set up for the next day. If it's on location or in home I check the car has petrol and my gears all ready to go. I don't think my brain could cope if i left any of this until the day of!

Sometime between 6 and 7;

Generally, I wake up when my little girl wakes up. I make myself a coffee and sort her breakfast and we sit down together. I'll double check. my schedule for the day, check my emails, re read my questionnaire for my upcoming session and probably post on my instagram.

9 am;

Our morning starts when I take my little one to either playgroup or her grandparents. If I'm working on location I'll head there straight from the drop off. I like to be early to these sessions to scout out the area on the day, test my camera settings and gather all my ideas. If it's a studio session, I head home and finalise setting up.

10/11 am;

My sessions usually begin around this time! I photograph maternity sessions, newborn, milestone and families. No two shoots are ever the same and I absolutely love to work with different families, creating important artwork that will be displayed for many years to come. I like to keep my family sessions playful and encourage contact and communication with eachother. The less posed and more natural; the better. Newborn sessions in my studio are peaceful and calm. I carve out a good few hours for these so baby can feed and be changed without any rush. Then we go through at babies pace, capturing all the little details.

Newborn feet being cradled by mum and dad

1 pm;

I take a quick lunch break and sit down to back up my images. I always back up photos onto my mac and hard drive after every session! You can never be too careful! Once that's done, I get on with some editing until it's time to go and get my little girl.

3 pm;

Home time for my little one and time for me to focus on her for a while. I try very hard to put my phone and laptop down and be present with her for a few hours. We play and talk and I make dinner.

7 pm;

Bath and bedtime for my daughter. Usually by this point I can see I've got emails and messages and my minds ticking again, so we do books and stories and it's time to say goodnight.

8 pm;

Once she's in bed, you'll usually see me sitting down to work again. I answer emails, enquiries and any other messages, catch up on my social media and do some more editing for a couple of hours. This is also when I'll re charge all my batteries and get ready again if I have a session the following day too.

10 pm;

Should be bed time but we all need some down time don't we. So I usually sit down with my husband and we watch a program and catch up before calling it a night!

Family maternity session

I hope you enjoyed a little insight into the day and life of a mumma and a motherhood photographer. I'm forever grateful for this job and life and to my amazing clients for keeping me so busy!