Genius Newborn Photography: Baby-on-Shelf Technique Explained

Because your baby is so perfectly, uniquely amazing, you want to go off the beaten path a bit when it comes to doing the “normal” baby things. When it comes to newborn photography, the baby-on-shelf trick is RIGHT up your alley. You want nothing but a cool, amazing, one-of-a-kind picture to remember these precious moments by… Even if that means putting their life in danger.

I’M JOKING. Baby-on-a-shelf photography has become a popular request among newborn parents, and it’s no surprise. When we see an image of a real-life human baby resting perfectly on a mounted wall shelf, our jaws drop! And then we want to make everyone else’s jaws drop with our own awesome photos.

Let’s dive into this trend and discuss how it started, what one professional photographer thinks of the request, and how – or even if – you can safely achieve the look at home.

Where Baby-on-a-Shelf Photography Started

It’s extremely difficult to attribute the birth of the professional “baby on a shelf” style to a single photographer. (Believe me, I’ve tried, and the research was inconclusive.) But there’s one very specific instance of a certain handsome baby Elf on the Shelf popping up all over the internet during Christmas of 2015.

Alan of That Dad Blog is very skilled in Photoshop (because no, he didn’t actually set his baby on top of a shower curtain rod unassisted for a photo op). This viral series inspired lots of newborn photographers to try out some artistic shelf photos of their own!

The Most Unique Images are Always Unplanned

Jennifer McNeil is an Orange County newborn photographer with over 10 years of experience. She completed The Shelf Series with her own son in 2017, capturing a shelf photo every month for his first year. In the 11th month, she captured this great image of him seemingly floating away from the shelf!

“It was a total fluke. Sure, I planned to have him upside down, but I thought he would possibly put his arms up like a handstand. At first, when he twisted, I thought ‘nooo’ but then I ended up loving how it turned out,” Jenn says.

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How This Shocking Look is Achieved

Before you go propping your extremely fragile newborn up on your decorative wall shelf for the sake of Instagram, please take a second to realize that NONE of these babies (not even Alan’s Christmas Elf) are actually sitting up on a shelf on their own. The human brain hasn’t had time to evolve an Assumption-of-Image-Editing skill yet, so this might not be common sense.

Jenn says, “People used to ask me in shock how I was able to get a baby to be still on a shelf.” So if you weren’t sure till now how it was done, believe me, you’re not alone! The actual secret behind baby-on-a-shelf photography is that the babies are always lying on the ground. The shelf isn’t attached to a wall at all, it’s just lying on the floor at the baby’s feet.

While the idea is actually super simple, the execution? Not so much. For one thing, this means you’ll have to be up high – holding a camera directly over your baby – to get the head-on look in these photos. (To be clear, dropping any camera – even a smartphone – on your baby is bad and will hurt them.)

A safer alternative could be photographing it from the side as if you were looking at the shelf from an angle instead of standing right in front of it. But the shelf not being attached to anything can pose its own problems with older babies, as well.

Jenn recalls the learning curve when photographing her growing son: “I had to tape the shelf down, or my son would flip it over, every time. I also use a sandbag weight for some of the poses depending on the baby’s mobility and such. This means there is a lot to edit to achieve the final look.”

In later shelf shoots, Jenn started using a narrower shelf with more evenly-distributed weight (like this one) to help combat the shelf-flipping.

While natural light would be the ideal choice for aerial shots like these, it would be tough to find a safe, level spot on which to photograph your baby that is smooth enough to pass as a wall. In a studio setting, lighting an aerial shot like this is no cakewalk, either. Do you go for ceiling light style, coming from above baby’s head? Or should you have a diffused light from the side like window light coming in the room? Perhaps you just want the image well-lit from above, but your baby keeps zipping over to the tall light stand as soon as you climb on the step ladder.

As you can see, there’s no simple cut-and-dry method for setting up this newborn photography shoot. Whatever setup you choose, though, you’ll want to be consistent with the setup in successive shoots like The Shelf Series.

Also, if you’re doing a series of photos to show your baby’s growth (like Jenn’s Shelf Series), you’ll want to use the same object in every photo, like a teddy bear, to show how baby’s size changes in comparison.

What Professional Photographers Think of This Trend

According to Jenn, “It is a lot harder to achieve than it looks… It is a big time commitment to come by 12 times for sessions, so I do not do it with every newborn session. In later months, it is nearly impossible to get a baby to lie still for more than 30 seconds!”

She also says it’s not always possible to get that dream shot in your head to happen. “Sometimes I need to get something that is ‘good enough,’ then I’ll try for a while longer to get that ‘wow’ shot.”

Should You Even Try This at Home?

I consider myself an amateur photographer. I’ve got some light stands and backdrops with a decent little crop-sensor DSLR camera. I’ve poured four figures into camera lenses over the years (and that’s chump change compared to the pros). I also own a 3-step utility ladder because I can’t reach the tops of my kitchen cabinets.

Would I try to catch this trend with a new baby? Maybe. I don’t think I’d do it more than once, and that one time would definitely be while the baby is still a newborn and could quietly sleep through it while I worked to get the lighting and angle just right. I’m also seasoned in Photoshop edits and composites, so I’m confident I could achieve a polished final image.

That being said, if all you’ve got is a smartphone camera and editing app, and a kitchen chair to stand on, I would definitely recommend you leave this style to the pros.

“I don’t recommend doing it at home if for no other reason than the possibility of frustration,” says Jenn. And don’t try it all alone! If you insist on going the homemade route, have someone on the ground with easy access to the baby while you’re up on your stepstool snapping away.

The Most Important Rule of Newborn Photography

Whether your newborn photography shoot includes your baby on a shelf or not, and whether you take the pictures yourself or not, there is always one cardinal rule of newborn photography:

The safety of your baby should always come first.

There’s not a single image in the world worth risking your baby’s life, health, or even physical comfort for. Images don’t make great memories if they remind you of the time your newborn fell over during the shot and cried hysterically for the rest of your session.

And when you do capture a super-cool shot that seems to defy logic, please don’t embellish the story of how it was taken (“We couldn’t believe our 5-day-old was holding his head up so well for pictures!”). You might have known before reading this article that the baby was never actually sitting on the shelf, but unfortunately, there are a lot of parents out there who don’t. They just see a really cool picture that got a lot of attention and think it might be okay to try and replicate it without taking proper precautions or doing any research.

“I would NEVER knowingly put a baby in danger, so I’ve been clear that this is an illusion.” YES, Jenn! Some secrets should not be kept, especially when it comes to keeping all the babies safe.

Hopefully you’ve gotten some inspiration for a one-of-a-kind newborn photoshoot with your baby, and have made an educated decision on whether or not to hire a professional to capture those precious images you’re dreaming of.