PHOTOS BY ALYSIA STEELE

When I have a lot of free time, which hasn’t been lately, I love taking photos of newborns. I haven’t done it in several years because of work commitments and a busy schedule, but photographing babies is relaxing and fun for me. Here are two from my personal collection.

The baby is Henry and he was about 5 days old when I photographed him. His mother is someone I met on an assignment when I worked in Columbus, Ohio, in 2010. I’d worked with her years prior to this moment and she liked my photography. When she was pregnant, she asked me to photograph her, and then when Henry was born, the family called me again. Henry is snuggled in his father’s arms. I purposely went when it was naptime to capture a peaceful moment. It took some convincing to get dad to take his shirt off, but I assured him he wasn’t the primary focus of the photo. This is one of my all-time favorite images.

The pregnant woman is the wife of a doctor, also in Columbus, Ohio — around 2004. They were expecting their first child. The wife was wearing a very heavy, loosefitting dress, but I asked her to put something on that was snug — I wanted to show her belly. Initially she was uncomfortable, but she relaxed when her husband complimented her. She went into labor a few days after this photo. At this moment, the baby was kicking and the father knelt down to feel the baby’s kick. This wasn’t a staged photo — and, this was when I used film. This was literally the last frame before I ran out of film.