Hospitals may be places of healing, but they can leave people uneasy – the starchy sheets, the smell of disinfectant, the blank white walls.

While photographer Corinna Rasnikov can’t do much about the bedding and antiseptic, she can and is doing something to make patients more at ease.

The Marion residents’ series, The Baby Project, was recently installed in the Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The large-scale black and white photos feature babies at the hospital, some healthy, others recovering in the neonatal intensive care unit, but all cute.

Rasnikov, who is perhaps best known for her award-winning wedding photography, has a strong background in family portraits and medical photography, so the art project was an opportunity to combine several strengths that fit into her artistic vision.

“Creating artwork that is uplifting in medical spaces is so important,” she said.

The Baby Project started two years ago when Robert Raymond, the hospital’s senior architect, suggested Raznikov for the art installation. Dr. Terrie Inder, chair of the newborn medicine department, met with Raznikov and eventually they scheduled a two-day photography session with a selection of the departments’ young patients.

While flashes and reflectors are normal for most indoor photos shoots, Raznikov took a more delicate approach as she photographed the infants, some still in intensive care. She came into the hospital rooms with only a camera and a camera bag, and she didn’t stay too long.

“I was very aware of trying to be small while I did it,” she said. “Connecting quickly, but not taking up too much of their valuable time.”

The result are sweet, quiet, “awww” inducing images of the first days of life ­– a tiny pair of twins swaddled and sleeping side by side, a yawning infant, parents enamored with their new addition.

More than a dozen of the photos are now on display, along with other artwork throughout the hospital, thanks in large part to Estrellita Karsh, the widow of famed photographer Yousuf Karsh. In addition to donating original artwork taken by her late husband, she’s championed the presence of art at Brigham for at least a decade.

“She feels art is healing, which it is,” said Raznkiov.

The artist was gobsmacked when she got to meet Karsh, who was brought into the project to help with the selection of photos and frames.

“Having Estrellita Karsh talk about my work, choose the matting, it was amazing,” Raznikov said.

Karsh also solicited the help of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Head Designer Keith Crippen to install the photos.

With the wall of babies complete, Raznikov’s work now resides in the same institution as one of her top five favorite photographers, Yousuf Karsh.

“He has a plaque, I have a plaque,” she said. “To have a permanent installation in the Brigham is, for me as an artist, huge.”

But it isn’t over yet. Raznikov would like to see The Baby Project grow with the babies over the next 20 years. She also hopes to expand the project to provide healing artwork for other hospitals.

In the meantime, Raznikov has no shortage of ideas for art projects.

She recently finished Vocabulary Day photos at Sippican School, a six-year project-in-progress of black and white photos with kids dressed up as vocabulary words. Plus, Raznikov is in the early stages of a “new obsession” titled “Mystics and Healers and Yogis Oh My” that profiles subjects in photo and in word.

Despite the variety of these subjects, all of Raznikov’s art shares a common theme.

“When I think about what all my work is about – it’s about the human spirit, family and love and marriage.”