With the new popular TV show called “First 48”, you might be confusing Fresh48 photography with a murder investigation. I really hope not. This style of photography session has become super popular in the last few years, and I honestly only really heard of it since I became a photographer. I had no clue it was even a thing when I had my daughter, but it’s become one of my favourite types of photography. Fresh48 sessions are hospital newborn photography sessions within the first 48 hours of baby’s life.

Fresh48 sessions are sort of the happy safe-point between birth and a newborn session. It ensures you’re able to have breathtaking images of baby’s first few days here on earth, when he or she is at their itty bittiest. Birth photography, while beautiful, might be a little more intimate than you’re hoping for, or even just too stressful to plan. I know after having two children that I, personally, don’t need someone taking photos of me while I’m going through labour. I’m very likely to punch them. However, if you wait until you’re home and settled for that lifestyle newborn, baby likely will have already changed so much. So, the happy medium. Get your photographer to come the following day, once you’ve had a chance to rest and recover a little and maybe even brush your hair if you’re feeling like it.

Check out this full Fresh48 session here.

In-hospital newborn photography sessions can also be an amazing opportunity to capture older siblings meeting their baby for the first time. That expression of wonder and shock on the face of a toddler who’s trying to figure out how mommy’s belly became a baby is one you want immortalized. In the session pictured above, that’s exactly what these parents did. They waited to introduce big sister to her baby sister until our session, later in the morning Baby E was born. And it was so beautiful.

So that’s a Fresh48 session – an in-hospital session within baby’s first 48 hours. But of course, we know that rules are made to be broken, so I’ve had the pleasure of capture some amazing Fresh 48 sessions that are a little less traditional.

So many women are opting for a home birth instead of a hospital one, and that definitely doesn’t mean you can’t have a Fresh48 session. Back in May, I was honoured to have the opportunity to capture this beautiful family, the day after mama had given birth to their second daughter at home.

I also recently wrote about my “Fresh48” session that was more like a “Fresh96”. Due to mama’s health and some scheduling issues, we had to wait a few days to do this Fresh48 session, which was actually captured at the Ronald McDonald House right across the street from Women’s Hospital instead of at the hospital itself.

You can read the blog post on this one here.

This new tradition of capturing baby as early as possible is definitely one of my favourites. I know from experience how quickly newborns change. I’m honestly not sure how mine is one and walking already.

And let me be clear – these aren’t instead of newborn sessions! It’s definitely a both/and thing, not an either/or. When you book a Fresh48 session alongside your newborn session, you get the best of both worlds – baby at his or her tiniest, when they’re super fresh, and baby in his or her new environment and first home, the one you and your partner so painstakingly and lovingly created for them.

I love it when clients choose to add a Fresh48 session onto their newborn package. If this is something that interests you, send me a message!