Holly + Hailey + Brewer | In-Home Newborn Session in East Toronto

A few months earlier, I photographed Holly and Hailey walking barefoot together along Lake Ontario, Holly pregnant with the little person they were waiting to meet.

This time, I came to their home in East Toronto.

And Brewer was here.

There is something particularly meaningful about getting to photograph both sides of that transition—the anticipation of pregnancy and then the wonderfully consuming early days when the baby you've been imagining is suddenly a real person in your arms.

And because Holly and Hailey are also friends of mine, getting to document their family as it grew made both sessions especially close to my heart.

Welcome to the World, Brewer

Newborn sessions don't need much. A baby. Their people. The home they're beginning their life in. That's really it.

For Holly and Hailey's session, we spent our time doing the ordinary things that make up life with a newborn: holding Brewer, cuddling together on the couch, changing him, settling into bed together, looking at him, laughing—and generally letting Brewer dictate what happened next.

Their orange cat even joined us, because of course the animals who already live in a home are part of the family story too. Nothing needed to happen on cue. Brewer didn't need to sleep through the session. He didn't need to stay wrapped perfectly in a blanket or be placed into a series of poses. He just needed to be Brewer.

Documentary-Inspired Newborn Photography

My approach to newborn photography lives somewhere between documentary and lifestyle photography.

I'm not completely hands-off. I'll help find beautiful light, suggest where everyone might be comfortable and offer gentle direction when it's useful. But I don't want to construct a version of newborn life that bears no resemblance to the one you're actually living. I want photographs of the way you hold your baby. The expression on your face when you look down at them. Tiny feet kicking during a diaper change. A baby wide awake when everyone hoped they'd sleep. The family cat deciding they should probably be involved. The way your home looks with all the evidence that a new person suddenly lives there.

Those details may feel completely ordinary while you're inside them.

Someday, they won't.

Why I Love In-Home Newborn Sessions

Home is one of my favourite places to photograph a new family because the place itself is part of the story. This is where Brewer came home. It's where Holly and Hailey are learning him—his sounds, expressions, rhythms, preferences and all the little things that eventually become so familiar you forget there was ever a time you didn't know them. His books are here. His nursery is here. The couch where everyone curls up together is here. The cat is here.

And perhaps most importantly for exhausted new parents: nobody has to pack half the contents of the house into a diaper bag and arrive somewhere at a particular time looking perfectly put together. I come to you. We work around feeds, diaper changes, cuddles and whatever else Brewer needs. Those interruptions aren't getting in the way of the session.

They are the session.

Photographing Queer Families as They Are

Families don't all begin or look the same way, and I don't think family photography should behave as though they do. For Holly and Hailey, these photographs aren't simply newborn portraits of Brewer. They're photographs of his family.

Two moms learning their new baby. Two partners navigating early parenthood together. The three of them beginning to develop the tiny rituals and relationships that will eventually become the fabric of their everyday life.

As a queer photographer, it's important to me that LGBTQ+ families can enter a photography experience without having to translate their family for me, explain who occupies which role, or fit themselves into assumptions about what motherhood, parenthood or family is supposed to look like.

Your family is already a family.

My job is to pay attention to how you love each other.

From Maternity Photos to Newborn Photographs

One of my favourite things about photographing Holly and Hailey is that Brewer's story in photographs actually began before I met him.

During their maternity session in Toronto, we photographed the two of them by Lake Ontario while Holly was pregnant—walking together along the beach, sitting beneath the trees and documenting that strange in-between chapter when your baby is already profoundly part of your family but you haven't met them yet.

Now I can look at those photographs beside these ones.

Before Brewer.

And after Brewer arrived.

In one gallery, they're imagining him. In the next, they're looking directly at him.

That's why I love photographing families across different chapters. Individual sessions eventually begin connecting to one another, creating a visual history of a family as it changes.

The Beauty of the Ordinary

Newborn life can feel like an endless repetition of very small things. Feed. Change. Rock. Hold. Sleep, hopefully. Repeat. When you're living inside it, those days can feel incredibly long. But the newborn stage itself is remarkably short.

Brewer will never again be exactly the size he is in these photographs. His face will change. The way he fits against Holly and Hailey's bodies will change. Eventually, they'll stop instinctively supporting his head when they pick him up.

His clothes will become impossibly tiny objects found in a drawer. And the home that currently revolves around the rhythms of a newborn will gradually become the home of a baby, then a toddler, then a child.

That's what I want these photographs to preserve.

Not a perfectly styled version of what becoming a family looked like.

What it actually felt like to have Brewer here.

Holly and Hailey, getting to photograph you waiting for this little human was special.

Getting to come back and meet him was even better.

Welcome to the world, Brewer. You are very, very loved.

Looking for an in-home newborn photographer in Toronto? I photograph newborns and families with a candid, documentary-inspired approach focused on connection, everyday life and all the small details you'll someday want to remember.

If you're welcoming a baby and want photographs that feel like your actual family—not a performance of what new parenthood is supposed to look like—I'd love to come document this chapter with you.