Newborn, milestone & first birthday
Newborn and baby photography in Kathmandu, Butwal & across Nepal. Newborn sessions from NPR 10,000, milestone sessions from NPR 8,000. Best shot 5–14 days after birth.
Newborn photography has the tightest window in this entire craft: roughly 5 to 14 days after birth, while a baby still curls into the folded positions they held in the womb and sleeps deeply enough to be posed. Miss it and you get a different — still lovely — set of photographs, but not those.
We photograph newborns at our Kathmandu and Butwal studios and at home across Nepal, plus milestone sessions at the sitting, crawling and first-birthday stages. Every session is paced around the baby, not the clock.
Prices below are what you pay — there is no separate sitting fee, editing fee or gallery fee. Travel outside Kathmandu and Butwal is quoted before you book.
NPR 10,000
NPR 8,000
Looking at more than one service? Compare every package and price in one table.
Baby photography is really five different sessions, each tied to a developmental stage. Booking at the right stage matters more than any equipment or studio decision.
| When | What it means |
|---|---|
| Day 5–14 | Newborn session. Deep sleep, natural curl, the classic folded poses. This window does not come back. |
| Week 3–8 | Nwaran and naming ceremony coverage — a family event session rather than a posed newborn shoot. |
| Month 3–4 | First real smiles and strong head control. Awake, interactive portraits. |
| Month 6–8 | Sitter session — the baby sits unsupported. The most reliably fun age to photograph. |
| Month 11–12 | First birthday and cake smash. Book at 11 months so the images exist before the party. |
You reserve a due-date week rather than a fixed day. When the baby arrives you message us and we lock the exact date inside the 5–14 day window. This is the only booking method that reliably hits the window, and it costs nothing extra.
The studio is heated, sanitised, and stocked with wraps, baskets and backdrops. Home sessions avoid moving a five-day-old baby and suit mothers recovering from a caesarean; we bring lighting and work in whichever room has the best window. Neither costs more than the other.
We allow up to three hours and expect to use most of it. Feeding, settling, nappy changes and soothing are the session — the photography happens in the gaps. Rushing a newborn produces a distressed baby and a short, unusable take, so we simply do not rush.
Every suspended or propped-looking image is a composite of two frames with a parent’s hands supporting the baby in each, edited together afterwards. No newborn is ever left unsupported for a photograph. We will decline a pose you have seen online if it cannot be done safely.
A private gallery of the full take, with 20+ images hand-retouched. We even out newborn skin mottling and peeling but leave the baby recognisably a newborn — birthmarks stay unless you ask otherwise.
Almost all of this is about the baby’s comfort. A comfortable baby photographs well; there is no technique that substitutes for it.
Newborns cannot regulate their temperature and will not settle in a cool room. We keep the studio at around 26–28°C, which adults find warm. Dress in layers you can shed. For home sessions, tell us which room heats fastest.
A full baby sleeps. Try to keep the baby awake for a short stretch before the session and feed them as we set up. This single thing has more effect on the session than anything we do with a camera.
The Nwaran naming ceremony typically falls on day 11 — squarely inside the newborn window. Many families want both, and combining them into one day means a tired baby, a crowded house and neither set of photographs working. We usually shoot the newborn session on day 6–8 and cover Nwaran separately as an event.
Families consistently book cake-smash sessions for the week of the birthday, which leaves no time to have the images printed or displayed at the party. Shooting at 11 months solves it, and a baby who is not yet walking is far easier to photograph than one who is.
A two-year-old asked to sit still next to a newborn will not. A two-year-old given something to do — holding a toy for the baby, "showing" the baby the camera — will. We photograph sibling frames first, while everyone is fresh.
Our Kamalpokhari studio in Kathmandu and Butwal-10 Ramnagar studio are both set up for newborns — heated, private, and stocked with wraps, props and backdrops that are washed between sessions. Home sessions are available across Kathmandu Valley and the Butwal–Bhairahawa–Tilottama corridor at no extra charge, and further afield across Nepal with a travel fee. For families recovering from a difficult birth, home is usually the better call.
Wedding Story Kathmandu StudioKamalpokhari, KathmanduNewborn sessions start at NPR 10,000 for up to three hours with props, 20+ retouched images and a private online gallery. Milestone sessions — sitter, crawler, first birthday and cake smash — start at NPR 8,000 for 90 minutes with 15+ retouched images. Parent and sibling portraits are included in both.
Five to fourteen days old. That is when newborns still curl naturally and sleep deeply enough to be posed. After about three weeks the sleep pattern changes and baby acne often appears, so the images look quite different. If your baby is already older, a milestone session is the better fit.
Yes, when it is done properly. Every image that looks like a baby is suspended or propped alone is a composite of two photographs, each with a parent’s hands supporting the baby, combined in editing. We never leave a newborn unsupported, and we will decline any pose that cannot be done safely regardless of how common it is online.
Yes, and it costs the same as a studio session. We bring lighting, wraps and backdrops. Home sessions are often the better choice in the first two weeks, particularly after a caesarean, since nobody has to move a newborn. Home sessions are included across Kathmandu Valley and the Butwal area; elsewhere in Nepal a travel fee of NPR 5,000–15,000 applies.
Yes. Nwaran (naming) and Pasni (rice-feeding) are covered as event sessions from NPR 20,000 for four hours, since they are family ceremonies rather than posed studio shoots. See our event photography page for the full details.
Plan for three hours. Most of that is feeding, settling and soothing — the actual photography happens in the calm stretches between. A newborn session that runs to schedule is usually a session that was rushed.
Tell us the date and what you have in mind. We reply within one working day with availability and a written quote — no obligation.