A dark room, one window, and a mum with her baby. That's the whole setup.
No white backdrop, no props, no cheesy poses. Just her, him, and the light coming in from one side. Everything else falls away into the dark. He's three months here, old enough to look back at her, which is why we don't only photograph in the first couple of weeks.
It starts dressed, standing near the window. Then she sits, and we work through the light as it moves. Somewhere in the middle she feeds him, and that's usually where the best frames come. She stops thinking about the camera and just holds him. I go quiet and move around the edge of it, finding angles while she does the real thing.
Toward the end it's skin to skin. Him against her chest, her cheek on his head. I stop directing and just let the room go still. That last stretch is the reason the whole thing works.
She wanted the feeding ones in, and the skin. Her boy, the way it really was, not hidden or cropped out.
You don't have to do anything but be with your baby. I'll handle the rest.
— Tony
