Birth photography questions

[snaptitude]

Hi gals, I'm hoping for a bit of insight! I'm already a professional photographer and would love to get into doing birth photography. I really wish I had more to show my two DDs about the day they were born but DH was a bit distracted!
My plan is to offer my services free to a few willing couples to get some experience but in the meantime, I wanted to ask you if you would ever use a birth photographer to capture your delivery?

Any comments and insights would be really helpful - if not, why not? if you were looking for a photographer where would you look for one? What kind of pictures would you have loved to have got of your previous deliveries?

Help would be so appreciated, it's a very special event in our lives and I want to do as much research as possible to make sure that what I end up offering is beautiful and relevant!

xx

Sorry but absolutely NO WAY on earth would I do that! There are far more important things to be doing during labour and way too much going on to want a stranger there taking photos. It's a very private time. Plus why would I want to look back at me looking tired, in pain and generally awful?! Pics of baby once they are born, of course - totally different thing. But we can do that ourselves.

Others may feel differently though :).

Even supposing someone wanted this service, it wouldn't necessarily plan out. Say I'd booked you for my DC1's birth. Would you have been able to guarantee you would turn up EXACTLY at the right moment? DC1 was 5.5 weeks early....

So, even suppose you had got yourself to the Rosie when I was in labour, you'd have then hung around whilst I puffed and panted away (and I certainly wouldn't want photos of that thank you very much). DC was then in distress, and I had 10 professionals plus dh and me in a very small room. I am fairly certain that a photographer would have been banned at that point because they could only just fit the resucc equipment and incubator in.

D1 was then born in quite a hurry, and rushed off to special care. I didn't see him for 2 hours as I had to deliver the placenta, be stitched etc. I wouldn't have wanted a photographer with DC1 when I couldn't be with him, and I wouldn't have wanted you with me either.

Possibly a birth photography experience would work if you had a straightforward labour and birth. However, you and the mother to be don't know whether it's going to be a straightforward birth or an emergency section.

I'm not trying to be deliberately downbeat about it, I'm just trying to point out the negatives. I think you need to be very realistic about this. It's not like wedding photography, which happens on a set date to a set formula.

Hi, I think I would be happy to be photographed during my first son's labour even though it lasted 6 hours and I screamed like an animal :) but ... I agree that coordinating baby's and photographer's schedule could be tricky. My son was 12 days overdue, my daughter was 15 weeks (not days) too early. If there was an agreement in place between parents and you plus you two/three and hospital staff then why not. I would even want to hear myself so perhaps a recorging session is a next step and way to attract new potential clients...

MiniMaks12, I think newborn photography is a great idea.
I would definitely have used your services in the first few days after birth. There was a much used newborn photographer (plus props) at the hospital where I delivered.
Photographing the labour and birth on the other hand ... Unless it's a birth in a Private Hospital (non-existent in this part of Britannia), you will be in the way!!!

What type of photography do you specialise in normally?