Caelan - Newborn Baby Photography / October 15, 2022 by Jan

It’s been said a million times, but isn’t it amazing how ordinary human beings like you and me can create life? Everyone; meet Caelan!

Noreen, Caelan’s mom, contacted me just about a week before this newborn baby photo shoot. At first I wasn’t aware that her son was so young. In fact, Caelan was exactly three weeks old to the day, when we did this newborn photo shoot. So quite literally, a newborn. That makes him the youngest baby I’ve photographed so far.

Now, if you look at my website, you will see that I love to capture natural moments, outside in nature. Natural and nature. Those are the keywords for me. I love how the photos look in those environments. I know other newborn baby photographers do prefer a more studio based photo shoot, with very posed and constructed shots, but that’s not really what I’m about, here at Save The Journey. Even when photographing indoors, I still photograph in a more natural and joyful style, like Elijah who I photographed here. I like shots full of life and love! I was glad to find out during the pre-shoot phone call with Noreen, that she shared the same opinion.

When working in TV, they always say, “Don’t work with kids or animals. They’re unpredictable.” Haha! Well, this might not be TV, but for these kind of shoots, I make sure I have a lot of extra time in my schedule. Just in case. After all, at three weeks old, a lot of basic things can be overwhelming for the baby. Even just being out of the cot, outside! That’s where I have to rely on the parents to help me out during this portrait photo shoot. Sometimes it’s mom that gives the right snuggles to calm them down, sometimes it’s dad, and sometimes it’s the bottle that they’re looking for. Patience. There is no rush after all.

Some of my favourite photos of this shoot are these following ones, with the dad, Thomas. It’s great to see someone be so happy to be a father! It may not sound like much, but it’s also amazing to see a father allow themselves to be so vulnerable with their kid like this. It’s great to see more fathers, and men in general, being more open in this regard. You can tell that both Thomas and Noreen are, and will be, fantastic parents!

If you’d like to book a newborn baby photo shoot or some kind of family portrait shoot, you can contact me here. I look forward to hearing from you!

And remember, besides newborn baby photography, I also photograph the following:

•Engagement Photography in Cork

•Family Portrait Photography in Cork

•Wedding and Elopement Photography in Cork

•and more!

Incoming - Baby Shower Photography / July 18, 2022 by Jan

“You don’t run your own wedding decoration company?!”

Wow, look at these decorations! The details, the amount of effort, the time, the love, the abundance. I couldn’t believe this wasn’t done by professionals.

The ice blocks for the prosecco were my favourite. Turns out they were hand made by putting individual flowers with water into a balloon and letting it freeze slowly. I love how they look and will definitely use that decoration trick in the future sometime.

So what is this all about? Well, Alex contacted me out of the blue. I have photographed her and her family before, a mixture of a family portrait shoot and photographing the christening of her daughter (see blog post here).

But today it was all about her friend who was being surprised with a baby shower! I was looking forward to photographing this one. I mean, if the last get together was anything to go by, then I knew it was going to look and be a great one. I mean Alex made such a big effort last time already, what would they be able to achieve as a group? But wow, they blew me away!

Photo shoots like these don’t feel like work at all. I’m surrounded by lovely people, the place looks great and I just get to have a lot of fun with everyone else. Although I do feel really lucky because I seem to say that about almost all photo shoots I have. You are all a lovely bunch! So, thanks for that.

I have done a lot of family portrait photo shoots lately and mixing it up with a baby shower photo shoot was a lot of fun, something different. So if you would like to book me for a baby shower photo shoot, or you’ve missed the boat and would rather like a newborn baby photographer, like the photos I took here, then contact me for a booking!

Thanks to all you lovely people!

Boys Allowed - Family Portrait Photo Shoot / June 16, 2022 by Jan

When someone contacts me about photographing their child’s communion or christening or birthday, I always automatically assume they are talking about their daughters. I’m not sure why but people tend to contact me more to photograph their daughters rather than their sons. So it was a pleasant surprise to hear that it was actually young Ryan who was the centre of attention that day! And boy, did he really grab that concept of being the focal point.

A lot of people tend to feel a bit nervous about getting their photo taken, and I don’t blame them! Even I feel nervous too sometimes when I’m invited to a wedding and I see the photographer, out of the corner of my eye, pointing the camera in my general direction. But Ryan loved having his photo taken. I took my time with him and taught him some poses, which he was only too eager to learn. I used the different locations in Fitzgerald’s Park to suit the pose, and just like that, I managed to get one portrait shot after the other.

We even faked this little scene with the father, where we got him to do some fun touch ups on Ryan’s collar and tie. This was not just a fun little interaction to photograph, but also a great way to get the father involved into the portrait photo shoot.

Quick break from the serious stuff to have some fun!

Then back to do some family group photos. The three of them made this shoot so easy, that we were done in a surprisingly short amount of time, which they appreciated as they needed to get to the church for the communion. I’ve said it before and I’ll stick to saying it again, but this is why I love being prepared and doing some location scouting beforehand. This family photo shoot took place in Fitzgerald’s, one of my favourite spots (also see this family portrait shoot I recently did there), and I’ve been there hundreds of times. But still I insist on arriving early and doing a location scouting. You never know what the light is like on that day, how the flowers are doing, have the roses started blooming yet, is a family having a picnic in your favourite spot? All these things can be quickly checked with a location scouting and will prevent a situation from becoming an issue.

As I’m writing this blog, it’s raining outside, so a big shout out to the sun for appearing on this day! At the moment it feels like the summer is not really coming so I’m just appreciating that it did make an appearance on one of my shooting days! Haha!

Oh and lastly, just wanted to share their review that the mother, Sinead, left me as it’s just too sweet not to include (testimonials for other shoots can also be found here):

“Jannik recently did a photoshoot for our son’s First Communion. We met him down in Fitzgerald’s Park where he picked out some amazing spots for photographs. He made our son feel like he was the most important person in the world that day, which he was. He was very professional and courteous and even had a sneak peak photograph to us later that afternoon. We are thrilled with all the photos we got on the day and really glad Jannik was available to capture our sons special day. I’d highly recommend Jannik.”

Over and out, thanks for reading!