It feels a little strange sitting down to write another update because I swear I was only just writing about everything that happened between May and September… and somehow we are already well into October, autumn is properly here, the evenings are getting darker and life behind the camera has carried on doing what it always seems to do, moving very quickly while also involving a surprising amount of waiting.
And there has been a lot of waiting lately…
That is probably the part of being a birth photographer that people don’t really see, the weeks before the photographs, when I know there is a baby somewhere in London who could decide to arrive at pretty much any moment, my camera is ready, batteries charged, memory cards cleared, phone permanently somewhere close to me… and every plan I make comes with a quiet little “unless the baby decides otherwise”.
Babies really couldn’t care less about our diaries 😂
But I actually love that part of it too, knowing that somewhere there is a family waking up every morning thinking… could today be the day?
And then eventually the message comes, plans change, camera bag gets picked up and off I go.
In between all of that waiting, September and October have also been full of much quieter newborn days, arriving at people’s homes and meeting these tiny little humans who have only been here for a few days or weeks, usually while everyone is still finding their feet and figuring out what their new normal looks like.
The more newborn sessions I photograph at home, the more I love them this way… there is nothing for parents to pack, nowhere they need to rush to, no pressure for baby to sleep at a particular time, I arrive and we just work around whatever is happening that morning.
Baby needs feeding? We stop.
Someone needs coffee? Please make one.
Toddler has absolutely no interest in photographs anymore? Fine 😂 they normally come back eventually.
And somehow, amongst all of that normal family chaos, the photographs happen.
Recently I had an enquiry from a family here in Beckenham who had just welcomed their baby, they also have an older little one and were preparing to move abroad only a few weeks later, and I remember thinking how much those photographs were going to mean… because suddenly we weren’t only photographing their newborn, we were photographing their family in this home, in this little piece of their life, just before everything changed again. I think about that quite a lot with this job actually… we always think we are going to remember everything.
The house, how tiny they were against our chest, the way their sibling looked at them, what those first mornings felt like, all the little things lying around the bedroom because nobody has slept properly and you’re basically living between feeds and cups of tea…
And then life carries on.
They grow, you move house, bedrooms change, routines change, suddenly that tiny newborn is sitting up and stealing food from your plate and somehow you can’t quite remember exactly how small they once felt in your arms. That’s probably why I have fallen even more in love with photographing motherhood as a whole, not just babies, not just bumps and not only births… but all the little chapters around them.
There have been maternity sessions too, and as summer disappeared they started feeling different, the light changed, the evenings became cooler, everything outside started becoming a little more autumnal… and honestly I love it. love a beautiful summer evening for maternity photographs, but autumn has something of its own, the layers, the movement, the colours, that slightly moodier light… give me a beautiful location, a family willing to wander around with me for a while and a bit of lovely light and I’m happy.
And quietly, something else has been happening too…
More of London is finding me.
Beckenham and Bromley are still home, and I don’t think that will ever change, I genuinely love photographing families who live around here, sometimes only a few streets away… but more enquiries are starting to come from further across South London and London, and that feels really exciting because it is something I’ve wanted for Deborah T. Photography for a long time.
I want to be the photographer people find when they’re looking for birth photography in London, or a relaxed newborn photographer in South London, or maternity photography that doesn’t feel like they have to become someone completely different for the camera…I want them to look through my work and just think, yes… that’s how I want to remember it. Natural, a little imperfect, sometimes chaotic, but ours.
Of course, while all these lovely things are happening there is also the considerably less romantic side of running a photography business 😂
The editing… so much editing.
Emails, enquiries, galleries, prints, invoices, planning sessions, talking with expectant parents, arranging newborn sessions around babies who technically don’t exist outside of their mum yet, updating my website, working on Google so people can actually find me, exporting galleries while making another coffee and wondering how Lightroom can possibly still be exporting…
Most of this business happens with me sitting at my desk looking considerably less glamorous than you might imagine.
But then a gallery goes out, someone sends me a message telling me they cried looking through their photographs, a maternity client comes back with “she’s here”, or a family I photographed before asks me to photograph the next chapter… and it all connects again.
So that’s where things are at the moment…
October, autumn outside my window, babies arriving, other babies making everyone wait, newborn mornings in people’s homes, maternity sessions, birth enquiries coming into my inbox, galleries being finished at my desk… and me somewhere in the middle of all of it, camera ready. I don’t really know what the rest of autumn is going to look like yet, but I suppose that’s part of what I love about this work…
There is always another little story beginning somewhere, another family changing, another baby deciding when they’re ready to arrive…and every now and then, I’m lucky enough to be invited in to remember it.
Deborah x
