The photo that proves newborn babies don't care about your precious memories.

Parents are already nodding. They know what is coming next.

Every new parent dreams of capturing that perfect newborn image to keep for years to come. To share with Grandma and put on the front of the yearly Christmas card. Well, that is until the reality of photographing a naked, nervous and temperamental newborn sets in.

US photographer Gigi O’Dea knows this situation all too well after attempting to photograph baby Asher on his Dad’s back.

“The parents wanted to showcase dad’s wing tattoo on his back and so I was really planning on a quick and easy session, but obviously, it didn’t go quite as planned,” she said.

Once the photograph felt as though baby Asher was settled enough, they removed his nappy and placed him on his dad’s back but clearly Asher had other plans as almost immediately he shot poo all over his dad’s back and pants before Gigi could even snap an image.

“Of course there was an eruption of laughter from all of us, and maybe a few groans from dad,” Gigi explained.

Asher parents and photographer Gigi meticulously planned to expect the unexpected by ensuring Asher had been fed, napped, and changed. They even attempted to keep him relaxed by playing lullabies in the background and using a heater in the studio to keep him warm – but that didn’t stop him from literally shitting on their session.

When it came time to place Asher on his dad’s back again for Take Two, on cue Asher ‘performed’ again this time exploding not only on his dad but also all over his Mum’s hand too. Gigi quickly told Mum to get her hands out of the shoot and proceeded to photograph the image that you can see.

“Asher then started peeing on dad and two seconds later, Asher spit up on dad’s face! We were all howling with laughter,” Gigi said.

Luckily having been a neonatal intensive care nurse in a previous life, Gigi had dealt with babies and their temperamental bowel movements before and saw the funny side of the situation. Understandably the parents were very embarrassed but Gigi reminded them that this was very common.

“It would be out of the norm for me to have a shoot in which a newborn did not have some kind of accident during the session.”

The photos in this post were taken by Gigi O’Dea. You can find more of her work here.

Have you had a newborn photography session? Did it go according to plan?