Louisville KY Newborn Photographer | The birth of a newborn photographer | www.jlritt.com

Jennifer Rittenberry Photography  HOME PAGE

This is my story of becoming a Louisville KY Newborn Photographer.  I am way behind on the blog bandwagon, but am so happy to finally be taking this plunge.  I hope it will find new readers to educate and new clients to fall in love with my artwork!  The best thing to do is to just dive right in head first, right? lol.  The biggest thing you’ll probably notice about me right away is that I am an open book.  I love sharing my photography to anyone that will be my captive audience.  I am a newborn photographer in Mount Washington, KY – which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Louisville.  I actually grew up there and still commute back and forth everyday!

I strongly believe newborn photography is a specialized art that requires the proper training, safety techniques and extreme patience to provide the professional results that clients ooh and ahhh over.  I hear people saying all the time “oh your job must be so easy since all they do is sleep.”  I promise you, you are way underestimating the power of a new mom’s smell of breastmilk to their hungry newborn or the comfort that it provides them while nursing.  I promise you, every baby is different and each one has their own little quirks; some love to be posed on their bellies, and some prefer only their backs (especially the gassy ones).  Sleepy and super squishy poseable babies are the product of proper prep for their newborn session!  That’s a whole other discussion.

I got into newborn photography on a whim after seeing some gorgeous photos pop up in my newsfeed – while at home recovering from a minor surgery – so I had lots of time to stalk said photographer’s photos and familiarize myself with her page.  Rachel Vanoven Photography.  Hmmm, “her work is pretty awesome,” I thought to myself, so I started watching her in my feeds every day.  I had nothing better to do at the time, so I figured why not.  HA!

Once I had recovered, I got the notion to give it a whirl and try my hand at a newborn session.  I mean hey, how hard could it be?  EPIC FAIL.  (sorry baby cousin Drayden, I promise I didn’t know any better than to pose you with that dog bone!)  But I wasn’t ready to give up.  It only made me that much more determined to master this art.  What’s this?  Rachel is offering a Newborn EWorkshop where I can learn all of her secrets?  Thank you please, I’ll buy that!  So there I was, studying every video and document bundled into this awesomesauce of a workshop and it was all there for my enjoyment to review any time that I needed a refresher.

Fast forward, the next baby in my family was born a couple of months later, and boy was I ready for him!  I studied up, took notes, watched the videos again and prayed for success.  The session came and went, yet again another let down.  I was missing one key ingredient, heat!  I didn’t have it warm enough to keep this naked baby asleep! Doh!  Another week passed by and they were back again (thank God they are family!)

Finally, success! Small success, but any success is good success in my book.  It meant I was growing and I loved being able to put my new tools to work.  Over the next year I begged every friend I could find to let me work with their newborn.  Lots of sweat and lots of tears shed over that time.  I kept practicing and staying active in our eworkshop group to continuously learn and improve my craft; praying that the light bulb would just go off one day and everything would just start clicking.  I felt like I was doing everything right, but something was still missing.

I have to give a little sidebar here to my husband.  He watched me start this newborn journey and silently kept nudging me to keep going.  “You’re not  a quitter,” he’d say.  “You’re too passionate to give up.”  Then Rachel posted info about an upcoming in person workshop.  TWO FULL DAYS OF NOTHING BUT BABIES!  (you can too!) Um yes please!  He signed me up and said “Happy Birthday!”  It just so happened that the 2nd day of the workshop was actually on my birthday.  Kismet!

This past August I got to meet her.  *THE* Rachel Vanoven.  Baby Whisperer in the flesh.  I felt like I was meeting some kind of a celebrity!  But she was just as down to earth and laid back as she portrays herself online.  Full of passion and every bit of the genuine spirit that I had come to admire over the last year.

I learned SO much at that 2 day workshop that I can even put it into words. Newborn safety, posing, work flow, creating my own style, marketing, editing and I could go on…. The photos below show just how much she taught me in that short amount of time.

Above all else, she inspired me to just be myself with this business.  I want my clients to book me for the passion that I have for newborns, my skillset and my integrity as a professional.  All that being said, PICK ME as your newborn photographer!  I promise you that you won’t regret it!

Jennifer Rittenberry Photography specializes in newborn, baby, family, child and maternity photography in Louisville, Kentucky and surrounding areas including but not limited to Mount Washington.