You booked a newborn session months ago, and then the headlines about AI-generated images of children showed up in your feed. Now you’re four days from your due date, wondering whether you have to let anyone post photos of your baby. You want the photos. You just don’t want them loose on the internet.
> Quick answer: Newborn photos privacy is your call, not your photographer’s. You can ask that your baby’s images never go on social media, a website, or a portfolio, and a careful photographer will note it on your file without blinking. At My Unique Picture in Cedar Park, every session is delivered through a private, password-protected online gallery with a download link, so the only people who see your photos are the people you choose to send that link to.
Who decides where your baby’s photos end up
You decide. A photographer owns the copyright to the images she makes, which is why she can’t hand over files for a stranger to resell, but publishing your baby’s face is a separate question, and that one needs your permission. At my studio you tell me what you’re comfortable with and that’s the end of it.
This is on everyone’s mind right now for a reason. The Boston Globe reported in late September 2026 that the Seventh Circuit’s AI-imagery ruling sent parents back through years of posts, archiving and blurring photos of their kids, and that photographers now see fewer than a quarter of parents sign forms allowing public sharing. Texas has its own law on this, Senate Bill 20, which took effect September 1, 2025 and criminalizes obscene computer-generated depictions of minors. None of that means you should skip the photos. It means the quiet request you were nervous to make is now the normal one.
What a private, password-protected gallery actually is
A private gallery is a web page holding your session that only people you invite can open. The link is unlisted, so it doesn’t appear on my website, in a portfolio, or in Google results, and the password is a second lock in case the link gets forwarded somewhere you didn’t intend. Pic-Time, one of the gallery platforms studios use, describes the same two layers: visible only to invited people, not publicly discoverable.
Your images reach you in two rounds at My Unique Picture. You get a color-corrected gallery about 14 business days after the session, you pick your favorites, and your hand-edited images arrive about 14 business days after that with a download link so you can save the full-resolution files to your own phone or computer. Newborn packages finish in one to two weeks. The FAQ page spells out the timeline and the file policy if you want it in writing before you book.
Once those files are on your laptop, the sharing is yours to control, which is the part most parents find reassuring. Nothing about a private delivery limits what you get. Our newborn and baby sessions all arrive this way by default, whether or not you ever mention privacy to me.
Asking me not to post your baby is a normal request
Nothing changes in your session if you ask for no public sharing. It costs nothing extra, it doesn’t shrink your image count, and it doesn’t limit which props, gowns, or backdrops you get. The only thing that changes is my own marketing, and that’s my problem to solve, not yours.
Say it whenever you think of it. At booking is cleanest, because then it’s on your file before I’ve photographed anything. Before the session works. After you see the gallery works too, and if photos went up in a previous year and you’ve changed your mind, you can ask for them to come down. I’d rather hear it late than have you stew on it.
Most studios work with some version of three levels, and the studio Apollo & Ivy makes a good case that consent should be an active choice rather than a line buried in a contract you sign on your phone in a waiting room.
| What you ask for | What it means | Who can see the photos |
|---|---|---|
| Share freely | Photographer may post to social media, website, portfolio, ads | Anyone online |
| No recognizable faces | Only images where your baby’s face is turned away or cropped out | Anyone online, but your baby isn’t identifiable |
| No online sharing | Nothing is posted anywhere; images live only in your gallery | You and whoever you send the link to |
What a print release lets you do, and why you won’t get RAW files
A print release means you can print your images yourself, at Costco, at Artifact Uprising, at whatever lab you like, and share the prints with friends and family. That’s the whole scope. Zenfolio’s explainer on printing rights puts it the same way: personal use yes, copyright stays with the photographer, commercial use stays off the table. A print release is not a privacy setting. It’s permission to print.
I don’t give out RAW or original files, and I don’t make an exception on request. A RAW file is the unprocessed capture straight off the camera sensor, before any editing. It looks flat and wrong, it needs software most people don’t own, and handing it over puts an unfinished version of your baby in circulation with nobody’s name on it. What you get instead is every image you selected, fully edited, in color and black and white on the larger packages. Basic skin retouching is included, and during ordering I show you unretouched proofs so you choose the images and the level of retouching rather than me deciding for you.
How long your baby’s photos stay on my system
I guarantee holding your images for 90 days. After that they move to my backups, and I can usually pull a session from quite a way back for a storage fee, but the 90-day window is the promise. Download your gallery while it’s live, then back the files up somewhere that isn’t just your phone. A second copy on a hard drive or a private cloud folder is the single best thing you can do for photos you’ll want in twenty years.
Three things you control on your own side
Your photographer is one piece of this. The bigger variable is what happens in the first excited week after the birth, when everyone who loves your baby wants to post. These three habits do most of the work, and parents’ privacy advice keeps circling back to the same ideas: limit recognizable faces on public platforms, and share through restricted channels instead.
- Keep recognizable face photos off public feeds. Post the back of a tiny head, a hand around your finger, feet in a wrap. You still get to announce your baby, and the images that identify her stay private.
- Send the gallery link only to people you’d hand a physical album to. Not a group chat of forty, not a baby shower thread. If you want a wider circle to see something, download three images and send those instead, so the full gallery stays with you.
- Tell relatives the rule before they need it, not after. One line in a text does it: “We’re not putting photos of her face online. Please don’t repost, we’ll send you anything you want to print.” Nobody argues with a plan that arrived first. People argue with corrections.
Where parents trip up
The most common mistake is assuming. Parents often read a photographer’s contract after the session, or never, and discover a sharing clause they would have declined in a heartbeat. Ask at booking, in the same email where you ask about session timing, and get the answer in writing.
The second is forwarding the gallery link to a group of people and then being surprised when images turn up on someone’s feed. A password protects the gallery from strangers, not from your cousin with a screenshot.
The third is blurring faces carefully and then posting the hospital name, the neighborhood, and the birthdate in the same caption. Privacy is cumulative. If you’re going to leave out the face, leave out the location too.
When you’re interviewing photographers, privacy questions belong in the same breath as safety questions: who posts what, where images are stored, how long they’re kept, and whether a no is on the record. The same openness you want about newborn safety and handling should show up here. If the answers come back vague, keep looking.
FAQ
Can I ask my photographer not to post my baby on Instagram?
You can ask any photographer not to post your baby anywhere, and that includes Instagram, a website portfolio, Facebook, Pinterest, and paid ads. Put the request in your booking email so it’s documented, and ask the photographer to confirm it back to you in writing.
Is a private photo gallery for a newborn session actually safe to share with grandparents?
A private, password-protected gallery is reasonable to send to close family, because the link isn’t published anywhere and the password keeps out anyone who stumbles onto it. The real risk is the people you invite, so send the link only to family who understand nothing gets reposted, and send individual downloaded files to anyone you’re unsure about.
Does asking for privacy cost more or get me fewer photos?
Asking for privacy costs nothing at My Unique Picture and changes nothing about your package. You get the same session length, the same props and gowns, and the same number of hand-edited digital images listed in your collection.
Can I get the original files so nobody else has a copy of my baby’s photos?
My Unique Picture doesn’t release RAW or original files, and that policy is the same for every client. Your edited images come to you as full-resolution downloads you can keep and print, and the originals stay in my system for 90 days guaranteed before they move to backup storage.
What if photos of my older child are already online from a past session?
You can ask the photographer to remove images from a past session, and most will take them down without a fuss. Send the gallery name or session date so the images are easy to find, and say which platforms you want them off, including the website and social accounts.
If you’re planning a newborn session in Austin, Cedar Park, Round Rock, or anywhere nearby and want to know exactly how your photos will be delivered and who will see them, say hello and tell me what you’re comfortable with. I answer within 24 hours, and privacy preferences go on your file the day you book.