Nylora Bruleigh is all about bellies and babies


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Like we said in the headline, Bruleigh shoots buns both in and out of the oven.
Like we said in the headline, Bruleigh shoots buns both in and out of the oven.
There’s nothing quite like a sleeping baby.
There’s nothing quite like a sleeping baby.
Bruleigh does what she does to get those little babies to look all-so-perfect for the camera.
Bruleigh does what she does to get those little babies to look all-so-perfect for the camera.
Photographer Nylora Bruleigh works with a young couple and their baby to set up a shot.
Photographer Nylora Bruleigh works with a young couple and their baby to set up a shot.

Spending time with babies and pregnant women is just what Nylora Bruleigh does most days.

No, she’s not a baby doctor or a maternity nurse and doesn’t even have a medical background. Instead, Bruleigh is just in the business of photographing the little bundles of joy, either already in the world or still in mom’s belly. About 12 years ago, pregnant with her second child and an aspiring photographer in her free time, Bruleigh got a phone call that changed her life.

It was an expecting mom looking for someone to photograph her belly. The woman had called multiple photographers and no one would do it, but Bruleigh, who had a studio on Pleasant Street, figured why not. She told the woman to come in and she’d try it. They talked about their pregnancies, took some pictures and by the time she got home, Bruleigh had an idea.

“I went home and I told my husband I found what I was going to do,” Bruleigh said. “We just had a really good time and I really connected with the woman.”

So she put a sign in her Pleasant Street studio window advertising Bellies & Babies and the phone started ringing.

“That window was perfect ‘cause cars would stop at the light and look around,” she said.

The belly shoots took a little time to get going, but it seemed like everybody wanted to have pictures of their little ones and there wasn’t the kind of market for baby photographers back then. At the time, Bruleigh was actually a hairdresser and didn’t have any formal training in photography. She taught herself, but once things picked up, Bruleigh had a decision to make.

So they built a studio in her basement before her daughter was born and moved out of the downtown spot.

“I knew if I was going to continue to do Bellies & Babies I wanted to be home,” Bruleigh said.

And she’s been doing it ever since. Over the years, she’s seen a lot of kids grow up and families expand. When a pregnant mom comes in for a shoot, most times that’s just the beginning. The woman will come in during the final months of the pregnancy because she doesn’t want them to come in too early.

“I usually recommend after seven months so they look pregnant and not like they had an extra cheeseburger for dinner,” Bruleigh joked. “You want them to have that pregnancy glow.”

And if they wait too long the baby could come early and miss out on the pregnancy pics all together, like one couple who postponed it because of the husband’s golf tournament and had the baby before the rescheduled date. The husband made up for it by calling during labor to set up the newborn shoot.

She’s heard plenty of stories about labor and delivery, and pregnancies in general. She’s even pretty good about guessing the gender.

“I had one woman go into labor during our session, but she didn’t tell me,” Bruleigh said. “She called two hours later and said she had the baby.”

Once the baby is born, Bruleigh wants to see them in four month increments. Within the first week, depending on how mom and baby are feeling, she likes to take those sleepy newborn pics. Then again at four months when cute expressions start coming out, at eight months when they’re sitting and doing the mobile stuff and again at one year when they’re standing.

Of course it depends on what mom and dad are looking for, but more often than not people want as many pictures as possible of that first year. But Bruleigh doesn’t stop there, because she will take pictures at any time. And when the stork drops another baby in mom’s belly, she does pictures of the family too.

“Everybody has baby pictures done,” Bruleigh said. “It’s normal. You have a baby and you get pictures done. You want something beautiful of your kids.”

Most of her work is done at her home studio, although she will venture outside.

“It really depends on what they’re looking for,” she said.

And within the last year Bruleigh has expanded her scope of work. She started Modern Beauty, which is geared toward the older women who want pictures of themselves in dressy clothing.

“It’s for the women who’ve had their families, had their kids,” Bruleigh said.

She also wanted to keep the two places separate, so last October, about two weeks after her husband finished renovating her basement studio after a broken water heat flooded the place, she rented another spot on Pleasant Street – actually across the hall from her original studio.

“It’s a different look, it’s all windows, light and airy,” she said.

To check out Bruleigh’s work visit photographybynylora.com and facebook.com/PhotographyByNylora. To contact her, email nylora@photographybynylora.com.

Author: Tim Goodwin

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