The Baby Retreat
Saturday you shoot. Sunday you edit, build your sets, and write the marketing that turns those images into bookings. You leave with finished work — not a card full of homework.
Reserve your seat
Most workshops end when the shooting ends.
You fly home with a full card, a head full of notes, and every unfinished decision still waiting for you. Two weeks later the files are still sitting there.
This one keeps going. Sunday is built for the part nobody teaches: culling honestly, retouching to a standard that holds up in print, using AI where it actually saves you hours, building sets that belong to you, and a full social media segment on what's working right now — so the posts that put the next family on your calendar are written before you leave.
Twelve photographers. One house. I'm in the room the entire time.
The shooting day
Four sessions, back to back, in a house set up as a working studio. You are behind the camera for every one of them. I move between you all day.
Newborn only
Wrapped, posed, hands and feet. The foundation work — settling a baby, reading the moment, and building a gallery that holds together instead of a folder of separate pictures.
A second newborn
A different baby, a different temperament, a different set of problems. This is where the reps start paying — you stop repeating a formula and start reading what's actually in front of you.
Newborn and sibling
The hardest fifteen minutes in this business, taught properly. How to direct a three-year-old who has no interest in being directed, and how to get the frame before the window closes.
The whole family
Posing adults who don't know what to do with their hands while they hold a baby with opinions. Lighting for two, three, five people. The images families actually print large.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all here. So is the conversation after dinner, which is usually where the real work happens — the pricing questions, the client problems, the things nobody asks in a room of a hundred people.
Your bed is included. No hotel to book, no drive back at 9pm, no early alarm to get back.
The day nobody else teaches
We eat, then we open the laptops and work through your own files from Saturday. Everything we do is repeatable on Monday with your next real client — that's the whole point.
Which frames make the gallery and which ones you're keeping out of attachment. The decisions that separate a strong set from a long one.
Skin, color, and retouching that still holds up at 30 inches. Done on your own images, on your own machine, at your own pace.
Where it saves you real hours, and where it quietly ruins an image before a client ever notices. You'll leave knowing the difference.
Build sets that belong to you instead of the same digital backdrop everyone in your market bought last spring.
A dedicated segment on what's actually working right now — reels, carousels, hooks, posting rhythm, and what to do when the reach drops. Built around your new images.
Captions, reels, gallery posts, and offers built from Saturday's work — written before you leave, ready to schedule.
Six reasons this is worth the weekend
Most photographers shoot four newborns in a quarter. You'll do it in six hours, with four different babies and four different problems, while someone who has done it for 27 years is standing next to you.
Not a ballroom. Not a stage. A house where I can watch your hands, correct your angle, and answer the question you were too shy to ask in front of a hundred people.
Editing is where most workshop momentum dies. Sunday exists so the images get finished while the shoot is still fresh and I'm still in the room to answer why.
Not hype and not fear. I've been testing these tools inside a working studio, and I'll show you exactly which parts of your day they belong in — and which parts they'll wreck.
Beautiful images that nobody sees don't book anyone. You'll go home with captions, posts, and an offer built from your own new work, ready to publish.
You share a house, five meals, and two long days with photographers doing exactly what you do. Those relationships tend to outlast the workshop by years.
Everything in one price
- ·Two full days, Saturday 9:00am to Sunday 3:00pm
- ·Four back-to-back newborn sessions
- ·All babies and families arranged and scheduled
- ·Overnight stay Saturday night in the retreat house
- ·Saturday breakfast, lunch, and dinner
- ·Sunday brunch and lunch
- ·Traditional editing worked through on your own files
- ·AI editing instruction, practical and limited to what works
- ·Unique set creation
- ·Social media segment — reels, hooks, and posting strategy
- ·Marketing materials prepared before you go home
- ·Limited to 12 photographers
Ana Brandt
Twenty-seven years photographing maternity and newborns, a working studio in Tustin, and a certified trainer network across four continents. I've taught in Milan, Melbourne, New York, and Frankfurt.
In 2026 I stopped running group education for maternity and newborn so I could go back to teaching small. This retreat is what that looks like.
You've photographed newborns before — a handful or a hundred — and you want more reps in less time.
You're losing evenings to editing you're not confident in.
You want a straight answer about where AI fits in your studio, from someone testing it rather than guessing.
You want to watch rather than shoot. Every seat here is behind a camera.
You can only make Saturday. The two days are one program.
Use code BABYRETREAT at checkout. The founding rate closes Tuesday, August 4 at 12:00pm PT. Overnight stay and all five meals are included at either price.
Reserve your seatBefore you book
Huntington Beach / Newport area, roughly twenty minutes from Tustin. The full address goes out with your arrival packet once you're enrolled.
No. Every baby and family is arranged and scheduled for you.
Camera, lenses, cards, and your laptop with your editing software installed. A full gear and wardrobe list comes with your arrival packet.
Sunday opens at brunch and runs straight through. Staying is part of how the weekend works, and it's already in your price.
Good. Nothing on Sunday assumes you've touched them before. We start where you are.
No. Saturday is the shooting; Sunday is what makes the shooting worth something. They're sold as one program.
