By Kat Knuth, Longmont Family Photographer
When my son was six months old, he experienced his first Halloween! My brother talked me into commemorating the occasion with a pumpkin baby photo shoot. He wanted me to carve a pumpkin to put my son into…kind of like a pumpkin diaper. I mindlessly scrolled through the internet for ages trying to decide how to pull it off.
My husband and I decided to pick up a large pumpkin at Chatfield Farms, a botanic garden with a seasonal pumpkin patch about a half hour southwest of Denver. We’d previously taken a goofy picture there announcing our pregnancy with our son. It seemed fitting to return and take a picture of our pumpkin alongside some actual pumpkins.
We chose a nice huge, round pumpkin and brought it home. I carved it up, lined in with blankets, and took it outside to take one of my favorite pictures of my pumpkin baby son. He was teething pretty hard at the time and drooling all over the place but I managed to capture a goofy look that was so emblematic of his personality.
But my daughter was a newborn at Halloween. I wanted to take some pictures of her to celebrate the season, too, but knew that a giant pumpkin diaper was absolutely out of the question. Instead, I carved the pumpkin just by removing the top and the guts inside. I stuffed blankets and a fluffy teal rug in the pumpkin, setting it in the middle of a lovely, assorted pumpkin, gourd, and dried corn spread, creating a makeshift studio in my living room.
Here’s what I captured.
I loved that she was awake for some of the shoot. She seems perfectly at home in her pumpkin baby bed, haha!
It was wonderful to do two different kinds of pumpkin shoots with each of my kids. What a great way to capture their first holiday experiences!
