Family and Newborn Photography in Amsterdam: Why I Made the Move from the US
Natalie Maria Photography has a new home base: Amsterdam, The Netherlands. After 15 years photographing families across Chicago, my husband, our toddler, and I sold/gave away/got rid of most of our things, packed 6 suitcases, shipped over a crate of stuff we couldn’t part with, and moved here this past spring — and I couldn't be more excited to bring my lens to this beautiful corner of the world.
If you're new here, hi — I'm Natalie. I've spent about 16 years capturing sweet newborn cuddles, unposed moments between parents and their kids, and fleeting moments of pregnancy. I don't see my job as staging a version of a family's life — I see it as documenting the real one- happy, sad, silly…and everything in between.
Why Amsterdam?
Let's talk about it…
To be clear, I LOVE Chicago. It's an amazing city — one of the best. I'm proud to be from there (I’m a 4th generation Chicagoan!), and I miss it more than I expected to. But when we looked honestly at where the US was headed and what we wanted for our daughter's childhood, checking out other countries made sense…and The Netherlands kept coming up.
A few reasons why we made this decision:
Safety. I could go on and on and list facts and stats from all of my research, but I'll keep this part short: gun violence in the US has become disturbingly normalized. Combine that with the current political climate, and the direction felt pretty clear.
Pace of life. We wanted somewhere calmer and less centered around hustle-culture — a place where work-life balance is ACTUALLY work-life balance.
The Netherlands is great for kids. It's currently ranked the #1 country in the world for happiest children. That's not a small thing when you're raising a toddler. It also consistently tops lists for safety and quality of life.
The DAFT visa. As a business owner, this made it possible (and fairly easy!) for us to relocate here.
Travel. We love to travel, and living in Europe offers lots of travel opportunities.
A weird love story with Amsterdam. I first visited Amsterdam in 2007, then again in 2012, and both times left feeling something kinda close to homesick after I left — for a city I'd visited twice, for only a few days each. I’ve always joked that maybe I lived here in a past life, ha…and now, here I am! Crazy.
We're still getting our bearings (no bikes yet, but they're coming at some point), but we already love how walkable this city is, the beautiful architecture, the canals, and how easy it is to hop over to another country for the weekend when the travel bug hits.
What I've been up to
Since arriving, I've had the chance to do a handful of portfolio-building model sessions around some of my favorite Amsterdam neighborhoods (see below) — the Jordaan, De Pijp, Vondelpark — getting to know this city through a lens, quite literally. Model sessions help me rebuild my portfolio here from the ground up, since (obviously) all my old Chicago galleries don't exactly represent Amsterdam buildings, canals, or cobblestones.
I've also been busy updating my website and SEO — an important step when relocating a business, since you want Google to recognize your new location and show up in local search results. On that note — here's something else I've been working on (because apparently I can't stop geeking out over SEO) — a course for photographers covering simple, doable SEO and homepage strategies to help you get more inquiries from Google. I’m super excited to step into the education space, and hope I can help other photographers who are looking to level up their business.
What I Bring to Amsterdam Families
My photography style hasn't changed — it's still candid, lifestyle-driven, and built around real emotion over posed perfection. Here's what that looks like:
Family photo sessions designed to feel laid back, and more like a relaxed hangout than a photoshoot, so the laughing, chasing, and in-between moments end up in your gallery, not just the "say cheese" shots (we’ll get a couple of those too).
Newborn photo sessions that capture your baby (and yes, your exhausted first days) exactly like they are - no forced poses, no unnecessary props, just the real thing. My newborn sessions are baby-led, basically meaning the baby is the boss.
Maternity photo sessions that honor this specific, fleeting chapter — the anticipation, the nesting, the "we're about to become a family of however-many" feeling.
16 years of experience working with families at every stage, so I know how to make kids comfortable, parents relaxed, and newborns cooperative (or at least, sleepy enough to fake it). Also worth mentioning here I suppose, is the fact that I have photographed around 8000 newborns in my career. In addition to my own business, I worked for a Fresh 48 newborn company at a hospital in Chicago for years, and sometimes photographed up to 10 babies a day. Trust me, when I was given the number of how many babes I had photographed with them, I was surprised too!
I'm especially looking forward to working with fellow expat families here in Amsterdam — I know firsthand how meaningful it is to have someone document this chapter of your life in a new country, especially when your own family back home can't be there to see it in person.
Come Say Hello
This post is really just an update — "here's where I am and why" — but if you're curious about what a session with me actually looks like, I'd love for you to browse through my portfoilo and see the style for yourself. Whether you're expecting, adjusting to life with a newborn, or just want some real photos of your family as it is right now, I'd be honored to help you capture it.
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Natalie Maria Photography is based in Amsterdam, serving families across the Jordaan, De Pijp, Oud-Zuid, Vondelpark, Amsterdam-Noord, and nearby Haarlem, Amstelveen, and Zaandam.