When they say “you get what you pay for,” those aren’t always just words to sell you. For some purchases, they’re actually words to live by.

When you first think of the competitive profession of photojournalism, you might first paint a mental picture of a photographer in the trenches of war or hurricane chasing after Katrina. Today, though, the trend has spilled over from disasters into the decidedly more tranquil, gentile and fragile: babies.

The concept of paying a premium for professional photographers to capture the critical first moments of a baby’s life was birthed from the same desire to seize the emotional veracity of couples as they engage in wedlock.

Baby photojournalism

Baby photojournalism is all the rage today.
Photo credit: Kristin L. Kasperek, iKLiKphoto.com

Just as you wouldn’t snap wedding photos at Walgreens for 50 bucks with an impersonal backdrop to drag down the moment, why do the same disservice to your newborn? Couples prepared for raising a child are already prepared for the money shock associated with the upbringing.

What used to be considered a luxury now continues to grow into a necessity as parents place increasing priority on capturing baby moments in a high-quality way they (and Walgreens) could never do on their own.

Photojournalists are now charging thousands of dollars to shadow newborns for the initial months of their lives. Some even perform the service for a full year and still manage to find photographic authenticity without the constant invasion of personal space and privacy.

Just as wedding photographers are hired for their covert involvement to stealthily be everywhere at once without intrusion, couples are increasingly commissioning photographers to capture that first baby step, early cries, nascent smiles and all the candor only pictures can reveal.

Baby photojournalism

Parents and photographers alike are marrying on the concept of baby photojournalism.
Photo credit: Kristin L. Kasperek, iKLiKphoto.com

This Moment Now Photographic (one entity that offers such services for the first year of a baby’s life) was founded by Jessie Kimmel in Canada. After being handed her first camera at the young age of eight, she hasn’t stopped shooting since.

Kimmel currently charges $1,200 for a first-year-of-life shoot or $1,200 for a pregnancy shoot. Professionally archiving that impressionable first year (a critical year new couples know they’ll never be able to relive) then becomes more of a question of who to entrust rather than if it’s worth buying.

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