Emily Marcella
- Jul 15, 2022
- 3 min read

Bump to Baby | Maternity and Newborn Photos in Burke, Virginia

The second edition of the Bump to Baby blog series features the Neal family!

Chelsea inquired for both her maternity and newborn photos this Spring. Which, if I had to do it all over again, I would absolutely book both before baby arrived. Because guess who didn't get newborn photos in my family? The second baby. Whoops!

Maternity photos were set for Burke Lake Park in mid-April. The lake provides a lovely backdrop all year round - especially with the docks to walk out on over the water. Spring ushers in a new beginning as fresh leaves begin to fill in on the trees and colorful flowers start to bloom. These signs where apparent at Burke Lake, too.

Overcast days are usually the best for shooting. You have the freedom to shoot anywhere and generally have even lighting. Our session absolutely benefited from overcast skies, as you'll see the dramatic clouds over the lake. However, with overcast skies comes the chance for rain. And boy did the rain have fun with our session.

We started on the docks with the occasional drop falling from the sky. Quickly, though, drops turned into a downpour. We dashed to the overhang on the nearest building and while we waited out the rain, decided to make the most of it.

Chelsea and Ricky were absolutely adorable and the overhang turned out to be a really cute addition to their photos. You can even see a slight outline of where the rain ends around the overhang.

Just as quickly as the rain started, it stopped. So we ventured out to a new spot - found a dry spot under a large arching branch and snapped quickly. Then the rain started back up. Leaving us scurrying to take shelter under the overhang where we took more photos.

Fortunately, Chelsea brought props to incorporate in her maternity photos. A letter board sharing baby's name, sonogram, baby shoes, and lilies made for a fun extra something in their photos. While the rain did it's thing, we kept doing our thing and played around with their props.

Despite the rain, this session was absolutely awesome! Mostly because Chelsea and Ricky were so wonderful to work with and very understanding of the situation.

As we parted ways, Chelsea noted that she was due in June and would reach out once baby girl arrived.

Northern Virginia Maternity Photos at Burke Lake Park

Well wouldn't you know - baby Neal wanted to make her grand entrance early! Chelsea emailed me in late May sharing that they were now a family of three and were ready to take their newborn photos.

I was so surprised! If I had to bet, I'd put money down that my two boys would never ever come on their own, let alone early. So it always surprises me when babies arrive early. As long as everyone is healthy and happy, then it's a great surprise.

Chelsea and Ricky had their nursery and guest room prepared for photos. The nursery was so beautifully decorated - I absolutely love flowers so the sophisticated floral in muted pinks was adorable.

The benefits to newborn photos at home is the chance to incorporate your fur baby. Tucker was very excited about his new baby sister and seemed very happy to introduce her to me. Now he had a partner in crime, a friend with food, and a pal to play with. Clearly you can see how happy he was to be included.

Newborn photos at home gives you the chance to capture this chapter of your life. It's cliché and all photographers say it, however, I'm coming up on four years since we took newborn photos at our home (could have been two but Mom forgot to book photos!). No longer do we have the nursery so neatly set up - he doesn't even have a nursery! Gone are the sweet elephants decorating his nursery. They've been wiped out by super heroes and a big kid bed. Gone are the rocker and changing station. They've been moved over to brother's room, replaced by big kid toys. The closet is no longer full of tiny onesies - it's all dinosaur and firetruck shirts.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the newborn stage is short so taking your photos at home and seeing all that goes into that part of life is really cool to look back on.

My hope is that the Neal family will enjoy these photos now but especially four years from now when their daughter can see them and see what life was like when she was a newborn.