Find the Best Photographers in Lebanon

Courtney Cania runs her newborn work out of Studio 302 at the AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, a space she picked partly for the wall of windows that keeps the room lit with soft daylight even on overcast days. She started out photographing weddings across New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, and newborn sessions grew out of staying in touch with couples long after their wedding day — she’s since gone on to document engagements, graduations, and now the arrival of those couples’ children. That continuity shows in how she talks about her work: she describes herself as someone drawn to preserving ordinary, easily-forgotten moments rather than only the big milestones. She has offered lifestyle newborn sessions at home in addition to studio time, and more recently has shifted to focus mainly on in-home sessions, meeting Upper Valley families wherever they’re most comfortable in those first sleep-deprived weeks. Her personal life outside the studio — gardening, baking bread, painting in watercolor — surfaces in a visual style that favors natural texture and muted, earthy tones over heavily styled sets. For Lebanon and greater Upper Valley families, she offers something relatively rare in the area: a photographer whose newborn work is grounded in a much longer relationship with client families rather than a single transactional booking. 

Sarah opened Oh Darling Photography after graduating from the Hallmark Institute of Photography in 2007, and her Claremont studio serves as the closest dedicated newborn-photography space to Lebanon and the wider Upper Valley. The studio itself is built specifically around newborn comfort — handcrafted outfits sized for infants, professional-grade posing props designed with safety in mind, and a full changing table stocked with diapers and wipes, so families aren’t asked to bring anything but the baby. Sarah works with a deliberately small number of families each month, which she ties directly to giving herself time to sanitize props, backdrops, and surfaces between every single session, a detail that speaks to how seriously newborn safety is treated in her process rather than being an afterthought. Her Early Childhood Education background and years spent working as a nanny show up in how she talks about sessions: taking a baby’s cues as the guide over any predetermined pose list. Outside the studio, Sarah spends part of her time on a local organic vegetable farm and co-teaches a farm-and-forest program for children, interests that reflect the same unhurried, hands-on sensibility she brings to a newborn shoot. For Lebanon-area families willing to make the drive to Claremont, the tradeoff is a studio built, quite literally, around what a newborn session actually requires. 

Raelene Robinson-Garrow runs RLG Photography from her studio just across the Connecticut River from Lebanon, in Cornish, New Hampshire, offering sessions throughout the Upper Valley in both New Hampshire and Vermont. Her path into photography started with a single college art class in 2011 that turned into a full-blown creative pursuit and, eventually, a business built around newborn, maternity, wedding, and family portraiture. As the mother of six herself, she brings a genuinely lived-in understanding of what a family with a brand-new baby needs from a session — patience, flexibility around feeding and nap schedules, and a calm, unhurried pace. Her newborn work leans toward soft, classic posing rather than a rushed once-over, and she has built a loyal following in the Upper Valley with nearly a hundred reviews and thousands of social media followers who return for milestones, family updates, and repeat newborn sessions with each new arrival. She has studied under a range of established photographers over the years and describes growth as a continuous process rather than something she considers finished. For Lebanon-area families, she offers an alternative to a big-city studio: a locally rooted photographer who already knows the rhythms of small-town Upper Valley life and treats every newborn session as one more chapter in a family’s ongoing story. 

Laurie LaPorte photographs newborns the way most families actually live through those first weeks: at home, sleep-deprived, and not particularly interested in a studio visit. Working out of Henniker, New Hampshire, she lists Concord, Hopkinton, Manchester, Bedford, and Lebanon among the communities she regularly serves, giving her a wide enough radius that distance rarely rules her out for New Hampshire families. Her site describes the work simply as soft light and true connection, an approach that favors quiet, natural moments over elaborate posed setups or studio props. Beyond newborns, Laurie also photographs birth stories, school portraits, and youth sports, a broader range that speaks to a photographer comfortable moving between very different kinds of assignments rather than specializing narrowly. For Lebanon parents, working with an in-home newborn photographer means one less errand during a demanding stretch, and Laurie’s monthly email newsletter suggests a photographer who treats client relationships as ongoing rather than one-off transactions. 

Sepia Sisters Photography is run by two sisters-in-law, Jenn and Sarah Grandchamp, working out of West Lebanon, New Hampshire under one shared studio name. Jenn holds a degree in graphic design and photography and founded the business in 2021, while Sarah’s photography roots go back to her teenage years and include time working for a dedicated newborn photography company early in her career, experience that now shapes how Sepia Sisters approaches its own newborn sessions. The pair splits their offerings across newborn portraits, maternity, family sessions, headshots, and even pet photography, which keeps the studio busy year-round rather than dependent on a single niche. Being local to West Lebanon means families don’t have to drive far or coordinate an out-of-town photographer around a newborn’s unpredictable schedule. With two photographers instead of one, Sepia Sisters can also bring an extra set of hands to a session, useful for wrangling props, soothing a baby between poses, or keeping an older sibling entertained while the main shots happen. 

Grace Baltic photographs newborns the way she describes her own life, a little unpolished, a little sweet, and centered on real moments rather than performance. Based in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont, she brings her camera into a family’s own home for newborn sessions rather than asking them to travel to a studio during the exhausting first weeks after birth. That in-home approach lets a baby stay in a familiar crib or nursery and lets parents stay in pajamas if that’s where the morning has left them, which Grace treats as part of the point rather than something to hide. Her lifestyle-first style blends a handful of gently posed shots with mostly candid, unscripted moments, aiming for images that read as genuinely lived-in rather than staged for a portfolio. Grace also photographs maternity and family sessions and is available to travel beyond New England when asked, but her steady client base across Upper Valley towns keeps her newborn calendar closely tied to the region she calls home. 

Sheilla Bachelder has been photographing families from her home base in Grantham, New Hampshire, ever since she found a manual camera in her parents’ attic and taught herself the craft from there. That self-taught foundation, later sharpened with formal training in composition and technique, shows up in a portfolio that leans on personality and genuine relationships rather than stiff, formal arrangements. Her newborn and baby work favors simple, uncluttered setups, a soft blanket, natural light, a parent’s hands, that keep the attention on the baby rather than props or elaborate staging. Serving the greater Upper Valley and Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee region, Sheilla’s client base spans towns from Lebanon and Hanover to New London and Hartford on the Vermont side of the river, making her one of the more geographically flexible newborn photographers working in the area. Families who want a photographer equally comfortable with a newborn, a senior portrait, or a full wedding often return to Sheilla precisely because she already knows how their family’s story has unfolded over the years. 

Dana of Firefly Photography has spent years building a following across the Upper Valley for dreamy, softly lit newborn and family portraits, with her own site listing Keene, Hanover, and Lebanon, New Hampshire among the towns she regularly books. Clients describe her as easy to work with and note her gentle touch with infants, a quality that matters most in the fragile first days when a baby’s comfort dictates the whole session. Dana’s portfolio leans toward warm, natural imagery rather than stark studio setups, often placing newborns alongside a parent’s skin or hair for the kind of quiet, textural detail that a plain backdrop can’t offer. Beyond newborns, she also photographs maternity, children, and full families, giving Upper Valley parents a single photographer to return to across an entire early-childhood timeline. For Lebanon families specifically, Dana’s willingness to travel across the wider Upper Valley, rather than requiring a studio visit, makes an in-home or on-location newborn session easier to schedule around a baby’s unpredictable routine. 

Memory Nest Photography specializes in maternity, newborn, and childhood portraits, building sessions around getting to know a family first rather than rushing straight to posing. The studio describes its newborn work as preserving the innocence and delicate features of a baby’s earliest days, treating each finished image less like a standard portrait package and more like a keepsake meant to last well beyond the nursery. Families reach the team by phone or through their online booking system, and sessions are designed to feel unhurried, giving new parents room to settle a fussy baby or take a break without feeling like the clock is running against them. Memory Nest also photographs older children and expecting mothers, so many clients return through several stages of the same pregnancy and early parenthood journey with a studio that already knows their family’s story. For parents in the Lebanon area weighing a newborn photographer, the studio’s focus stays narrow and intentional: fewer session types, done with more attention to the small, fleeting details that disappear within weeks. 

Marissa Baker built Peaks & Pearls Photography after a friend asked her to photograph an elopement, a one-off favor that turned into a five-year career serving families across the Upper Valley, including Lebanon. Before turning to photography full time, Marissa worked as a mental health therapist, and she says that background shaped how she runs a session more than any camera setting did: reading a room, holding space, and noticing the small moments a family might otherwise miss. Her newborn and family work leans documentary rather than posed, built around the idea of presence over pressure, so parents aren’t handed a rigid list of positions to hit. Clients describe feeling calm and understood rather than directed, which matters most in the fog of a baby’s first weeks home. Based in Vermont and comfortable crossing the Connecticut River for Upper Valley families, Marissa treats a newborn session less like a photo shoot and more like an hour of quiet company with someone trained to notice what’s real, and let it show up naturally in the images she delivers afterward. 

Marissa Baker brings an unusual second credential to Peaks & Pearls Photography: she’s a licensed mental health therapist as well as a documentary wedding photographer, and that combination shapes how she works a wedding day. Rather than directing couples into poses, she talks about reading the room and protecting people’s energy, aiming to photograph couples as they actually are rather than as they perform for a camera. Her portfolio spans Vermont and New Hampshire, including weddings at Cardigan Lodge in New Hampshire, the Inn at Weathersfield in Vermont, and elopements scattered across both states’ mountains and river valleys — geography that puts the Upper Valley squarely inside her regular coverage area. She’s built a particular specialty in elopements and micro weddings, a niche that’s grown steadily among couples who want a meaningful, photographed ceremony without a large traditional production, and her documentary approach suits that kind of low-key, intimate day especially well. Past clients describe her as engaged, organized, and warm from the first planning conversation onward, with one couple crediting her energy and preparation as central to how comfortable they felt in front of the camera. For Upper Valley couples planning a small wedding or elopement rather than a large reception, she’s one of the more specialized options in the region. 

Courtney Cania photographs weddings from a studio base at the AVA Gallery and Art Center in West Lebanon, putting her directly in the heart of the Upper Valley she markets herself around — Lebanon, Hanover, Norwich, and Lyme all get their own dedicated content on her website. Her galleries lean romantic and soft-focus, built around natural light and candid in-between moments rather than heavily posed setups, and her portfolio shows a particular comfort with estate weddings, coastal ceremonies, and large tented receptions. She markets her coverage across New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine, which lines up with the reality of Upper Valley weddings: couples frequently marry in New Hampshire but honeymoon or hold a second celebration across the Connecticut River in Vermont, and Courtney’s willingness to shoot on both sides of that border is a practical advantage for local clients. Reviewers describe her as organized, quick to respond during planning, and easy to work with on the actual wedding day — the kind of low-friction vendor relationship couples specifically look for when they’re already managing dozens of other logistics. She books both full wedding-day coverage and smaller, Upper-Valley-based engagement or elopement sessions for couples who want something less traditional. 

Rob Strong runs his photography studio right in downtown Lebanon, on Williams Street, and his client list reads less like a typical wedding photographer’s and more like a regional arts-and-institutions résumé: Dartmouth College, the Tuck School of Business, the Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the Hood Museum of Art, and the Hopkins Center for the Arts all appear alongside national outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. That institutional and editorial background — documentary, portraiture, performance, and photojournalism — carries directly into how he shoots a wedding. His portfolio is organized by time of day, from quiet getting-ready shots in the morning through the structured portraits of midday to the looser, more atmospheric frames of the reception at night, which suggests a photographer thinking about a wedding as a full narrative arc rather than a checklist of poses. Because Lebanon is home turf for him rather than a drive-in market, he knows the area’s Dartmouth-adjacent venues, the Connecticut River backdrops, and the rhythms of an Upper Valley wedding weekend firsthand. His WeddingWire reviews are limited in number but hold a perfect 5.0 average, with couples specifically praising his unobtrusive presence during the ceremony and his fast turnaround afterward. 

Jen McKenna photographs weddings out of Lebanon, New Hampshire itself, having relocated to the Upper Valley after six years building a portrait and wedding business on Long Island. That New York background shows in her pacing — she treats a wedding day the way a photojournalist covers a breaking story, staying alert for the moments that happen once and can’t be restaged, while still making sure every traditional shot on a couple’s list gets captured. Clients describe her as disarming and funny on set, which tends to loosen up even camera-shy wedding parties within the first few frames. Every package includes an engagement session, a private online gallery, and what she calls unlimited consultation — meaning couples can reach her with questions throughout planning rather than just in the weeks before the wedding. Since setting up shop in the Upper Valley, she’s become one of the more locally embedded photographers serving Lebanon and the surrounding Dartmouth College area, and she still travels for destination weddings when couples want her documentary style somewhere farther afield. Her reviews are uniformly five-star, with past clients repeatedly returning to the same theme: that she captured genuine emotion rather than a performance for the camera. 

Ashley of Yeaton Photography has spent the last six-plus years building a fine art wedding photography practice out of Plymouth, New Hampshire, roughly 45 minutes from Lebanon and well within her regular Upper Valley service radius. Where a lot of New England wedding photographers lean toward muted, neutral palettes, Ashley goes the opposite direction — she’s drawn to bold colors and oversized floral installations, and her galleries read more like editorial spreads than a typical wedding album. That said, her actual shooting approach blends documentary instinct with editorial polish: she works the room for genuine, unscripted reactions during the ceremony and reception, then sets aside dedicated time for a handful of intentionally styled portraits. Clients repeatedly mention how much fun she is to have around on the wedding day itself, describing an easy rapport that seems to translate directly into more relaxed, authentic photographs. She’s listed as available worldwide, which suits Upper Valley couples who split their planning between a New Hampshire ceremony and a honeymoon or vow renewal elsewhere. On WeddingWire she holds a perfect 5.0-star average across fifteen reviews, with couples consistently highlighting her communication throughout the planning process as much as the final images themselves. 

Lauren Sanborn runs L. Sanborn Photography out of Gilford, New Hampshire, about an hour from Lebanon, and in just over a decade of shooting she’s built a portfolio approaching 500 weddings. Her signature description of her own work — candid, moody, and artistic — shows up consistently in client reviews, with couples pointing to a cinematic quality that still feels personal rather than staged. She built her business around helping camera-shy couples relax, a skill that shows in the loose, natural body language throughout her galleries. Because Upper Valley couples often hold their weddings at rural venues well outside any single photographer’s home base, Lauren’s packages include travel up to three hours each way, which comfortably covers the entire Lebanon and Dartmouth-Hanover area without a surcharge. She’s a woman-owned business and a past WeddingWire Couples’ Choice Award winner, with a 4.8-star average across more than twenty reviews and a 96 percent recommendation rate from past clients. Reviewers consistently mention how quickly she edits and delivers final galleries, and several specifically credit her with putting anxious brides and grooms at ease before the ceremony even started. For couples who want documentary storytelling with a slightly editorial, moodier color palette rather than bright-and-airy imagery, she’s a distinctive option among Upper Valley-area photographers. 

Just twenty minutes from Lebanon in Woodstock, Vermont, Sally Carpenter has been photographing New England weddings since 2001 — long enough to have covered second-generation weddings for some of her earliest clients’ children. Her approach sits squarely in the documentary and editorial tradition: she moves through a wedding day watching for the moments nobody staged, then supplements them with a handful of composed portraits meant to feel timeless rather than trendy. That combination has earned her recognition well beyond the Upper Valley, including a 2025 Best Artist honor from World’s Best Wedding Photographers, multiple WeddingWire Couples’ Choice Awards, and inclusion on The Knot’s Best of Weddings list; her work has also been featured in Carats & Cake. Couples marrying at Upper Valley venues near Dartmouth and the Connecticut River frequently hire Sally specifically because she already knows the light at popular local spots from two and a half decades of shooting in the region, and she’s equally comfortable traveling for a destination wedding. One recent client described sobbing over her gallery a second time, writing that she’d “captured the spirit, the love, and the joy of the day with such beauty and honesty.” With eighty-plus reviews and a 5.0 average rating, she’s one of the most reviewed wedding photographers serving the Lebanon area. 

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