A newborn baby’s photo shoot in Cincinnati, Ohio, went viral after the photographer shared photos of the baby’s hilarious grumpy expression online.
The infant, Trent, was only 7 days old when his mom, Jessica Mundy, took him for a photo shoot with photographer Lauren Carson, earlier this month.
Carson later posted the images of Trent on her photography’s account on Facebook and shared why this particular photo shoot stood out to her in comparison to others she had done in the past.
“I’ve been photographing newborns for a decade and have photographed hundreds of babies who have given me tons of great expressions,” she wrote in the post last week. “But none, and I mean NONE compare[d] to the looks this sweet guy threw my way.”
The post instantly gained viral attention, drawing over 150,000 likes and counting.
In an interview with “Good Morning America,” Carson shared that the photo shoot began as a pretty typical newborn shoot.
“Mom brought the baby in and he was wide awake at the very beginning,” Carson explained. “So we went ahead and swaddled him up and got them ready… we put them down and just kind of went with it.”
Carson explained how Trent posed for the camera, saying, “And he started making those faces and [I] just started capturing them as they came. I was trying to capture all the expressions that I can with newborns because they can be kind of unpredictable sometimes.”
In contrast to what was captured in the images, Carson said Trent was not actually grumpy during the photo shoot.
“He was perfectly content,” she explained. “He wasn’t fussy. He wasn’t making any crying noises or any indication that he was actually uncomfortable or upset. He was just making faces at us… he was like a great little baby.”
Throughout her experience as a photographer for the newborns, Carson told “GMA,” as far as expressions go, Trent was a “much more expressive” baby than she had ever worked with before.
“I’ve gotten lots of expressions over the years and smiles and, you know, awkward faces and things like that, but none that were as consistent as him, especially with the same with eye contact,” she added. “He had fantastic eye contact along with expressions.”
When Trent began making his expressions during the photo shoot, Carson said she and Trent’s mom started laughing, adding that Mundy told her the facial expressions were common for the infant.
“He has made those faces before,” Carson recalled Mundy telling her.
Soon after she shared it online, Carson said the photos gathered attention quickly, with millions of views, so far, and the responses she received since have been “overwhelmingly good.”
“A lot of people just find it really funny,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of people commenting what they think he would be thinking at the moment, you know, that he looks like a little grumpy old man.”
Carson explained how other parents have related to her photos of baby Trent.
“People have been sharing pictures of their own kids making funny faces,” Carson said, adding, “So it’s been really entertaining for me to watch from my side.”
