The Beauty of Slowing Down: A Newborn Session on Film

There’s something about those first few weeks with a new baby that feels like time both stands still and disappears at the same time. The days are soft and blurry, the nights are long, and everything revolves around tiny details that change before you’re even ready for them to.

That’s exactly why I love photographing newborns on 35mm film.

Film forces you to slow down in the best possible way. There’s no rushing, no rapid-fire shutter, no endless checking of a screen to see what you just captured. Instead, there’s intention. There’s presence. There’s a quiet kind of trust in the process—one that mirrors those early newborn days more than anything else I’ve ever worked with.

This session was created as a newborn model call, but it became something more than that. It became a study in softness. In patience. In letting moments unfold instead of trying to control them.

Baby was just a few weeks new—still curled in that familiar womb-like posture, still stretching into the world one tiny movement at a time. And like all newborn sessions, nothing was rushed. We paused for feedings, for soothing, for the kind of breaks that aren’t interruptions at all—they’re part of the story.

That’s what film does so beautifully. It doesn’t ask for perfection. It doesn’t ask for constant posing or performance. It simply asks you to notice.

To notice the way a hand rests against a cheek.
To notice the way light falls across a bassinet.
To notice the way a parent leans in without even thinking about it.

And in those pauses, something really special happens—you stop documenting and start remembering.

I often say newborn sessions aren’t really about the baby alone. They’re about the beginning of a family’s new rhythm. The way everything shifts. The way love expands in a way you didn’t fully understand until you’re living it.

Film slows that down even further. It strips away distraction. It makes each frame matter a little more. There’s a weight to it, not in an intimidating way, but in a meaningful one. Every click of the shutter feels like a decision to hold onto something worth remembering.

And when the scans come back, there’s always this feeling that’s hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it—like opening a memory instead of just viewing a photo gallery. The grain, the softness, the imperfection… it all feels honest. It feels like how those early days actually were.

As a photographer, I don’t use film for everything. But I reach for it when I want to slow myself down. When I want to create work that feels less like producing and more like preserving.

And newborn sessions are exactly that.

Preservation.

Of something fleeting. Of something sacred. Of something you’ll wish you could go back and hold onto just a little longer.

This newborn model call was a reminder of why I keep coming back to it. Not because film is trendy, but because it’s truthful. It asks me to be present in a way nothing else does.

And in a season of life where everything changes by the hour, that kind of presence matters more than anything.