Advice on shooting pregnancy.

Chr1stof

Chr1stof

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Chris
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We are expecting our first baby, its only early days and the bump is not really showing yet (14 weeks). I would like to try and document the pregnancy and maybe make a little montage type thing. Sounds cheesey and probably been done a million times but I just think it would be nice.
Problem is I havent a clue how to go about it, I am a novice and still at the bottom of a steep learning curve. Obviously I dont have a studio and it will be hard to control conditions etc to get a consistent look. I would very much appreciate any tips and advice on how to get some shots I will treasure!

Kit is- canon 550d, EF28-135mm, Nifty 1.8 on order.

Cheers peeps :)
 
Regretably I cant remember where I saw it, but there's a fantastic photo comprising of a sequence of almost identical poses taken at monthly intervals, with the final shot of mum with baby in arms.

You should be able to control most of the lighting/posing/camera angle if it's well documented.

Whatever you produce will, I'm sure, be treasured.
 
BUMP if you parden the pun :)

Would love some advice on how to consistently light it, correct WB and so on. I dont have any specialist kit etc so how can I try and make the best of it?
 
Chr1stof said:
BUMP if you parden the pun :)

Would love some advice on how to consistently light it, correct WB and so on. I dont have any specialist kit etc so how can I try and make the best of it?
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Can you shoot at roughly the same time of day in front of the same window every time? That should give some sense of continuity, especially if you just through a white or black sheet down as a background. Any other issues could probably be handled in pp to ensure uniformity.
 
Thanks for answering, not sure that would work as the days get shorter and weather varies?
 
This is the kind of thing but I dont have the kit or know how!
 
Well, it depends on your budget, but the above could be done pretty cheaply,

You need a soft lightsource from the left and a plain white background behind and a refelector to the right. In this case it is an off camera flash in a softbox and the background is paper on a background stand.

You could do something similar in front of a window with a plain wall.
 
Chr1stof said:
We are expecting our first baby, its only early days and the bump is not really showing yet (14 weeks). I would like to try and document the pregnancy and maybe make a little montage type thing. Sounds cheesey and probably been done a million times but I just think it would be nice.
Problem is I havent a clue how to go about it, I am a novice and still at the bottom of a steep learning curve. Obviously I dont have a studio and it will be hard to control conditions etc to get a consistent look. I would very much appreciate any tips and advice on how to get some shots I will treasure!

Kit is- canon 550d, EF28-135mm, Nifty 1.8 on order.

Cheers peeps :)
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At the risk of sounding harsh, what is your experience level, you have enough kit to work with.

All you need to take a photograph of a person is; a person, a light source and a camera, you appear to have the camera and subject - we have a sun and I'm sure there's electricity in your house. Sorted

There's some fairly good general advice here but I feel you think there's some magic bullet to make up for a lack of gear and knowledge.

For consistent results all you need is to photograph the subject with the same gear with the same background, the background can be less than perfect but a little effort with a bed sheet will tidy anything up all you need is a little ingenuity to create it.

The lighting can be a window. Tip - find the windowlight, create the background - in that order.

It doesn't have to be done at the same time of day, you'll find that for similar camera settings, you'll need a higher ISO in the winter than in the summer, avoid the harsh light of sunrise / sunset (depending on the direction of your window) - net curtain will help (temporary if you don't use them).

Chr1stof said:
This is the kind of thing but I dont have the kit or know how!
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All of the above could have been gleaned from this post, but it seems that it's easier to focus on your lack of knowledge and gear?:(

Experiment to create the shot now, whilst your wife/gf is still comfortable, when you have the setup nailed, you'll be able to set it up, then invite her in and shoot in a minute, this will be the key to getting her co-operation in the later stages, that and her being able to see how she's changing and still looking beautiful.

As you can see, it's all about organisation and psychology - successful portrait photography requires that you have the photography bit nailed. in this scenario - you only have to perfect one technique / light / pose.;)
 
Phil V said:
At the risk of sounding harsh, what is your experience level, you have enough kit to work with.
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Pretty much a beginner in general and total noob to this kind of thing. I had to google "softbox" :)

Phil V said:
There's some fairly good general advice here but I feel you think there's some magic bullet to make up for a lack of gear and knowledge.
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No not at all, just trying to get some basic tips relating to what I want to do and how to get the best out of what I have got. I would be happy just to get some halfway decent shots instead of the usual rubbish I produce that goes straight in the bin!

Thanks for all the info so far chaps, just been reading around it trying to get my head into gear.
Will have to pull my finger out as she is suddenly starting to expand in the area in question :eek:
 
Nothing wrong with being inexperienced Chris and it's great that you want to improve.

Find a window in your house that has good natural light at some time of the day and is next to a fairly plain wall, no radiators or pictures or patterned wallpaper ideally. Either with white net curtains, if not hang a white sheet over the window.

Get your partner to stand in front of it wearing something that would show the bump but isn't raunchy, raunchy is not what we are looking for here!

Using your 50mm 1.8, set the camera to aperture priority to around F2.8 or F4 to get enough depth of field and stand back enough to get her framed from just below the tummy to just above her head. Stand where you get the light from the window on her but not directly in the frame, that way the camera will not be fooled into underexposing because of the bright light.

Take a few shots and put the best one here. Don't worry if you think it's rubbish, there is enough time to work out why it is rubbish and fix it before the baby comes.

Once you get it sorted, it's just a matter of repeating it every month until the baby comes.

Congratulations by the way.

:thumbs:
 
Havent had the chance to shoot in daylight, tried a few candle lit shots as a test but i dont think that wil work sadly. Seemed like a good idea in my head!
 
Chr1stof said:
Havent had the chance to shoot in daylight, tried a few candle lit shots as a test but i dont think that wil work sadly. Seemed like a good idea in my head!
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Clearly because you've thought about candlelight you have an idea about the different quality that different light produces. But now that you've tried it you realise that there's a problem with quantity when it comes to candlelight. That's an important lesson - experienced photographers would have to think about how they'd deal with having to shoot with candlelight.:thinking:

Now you're past that, go back to the advice above and make this easy for yourself, on Saturday afternoon, get your partner posing around some windows and examine the light quality and falloff. In ten minutes of this with or without a camera, you'll learn loads. You don't need to think too hard about backgrounds or poses. Find the right window setting first, can you improve it with a simple reflector?*. Then go back to the background advice, then you can think about the pose and clothing etc. But lesson 1 is 'Find the light' which is what all portrait photographers do as the first decision, whether thats outside or inside, daylight, continuous artificial light or flash (or a mix of those).

Learning how to read light is the most important lesson to take you from being a guy with a camera to a photographer. If you go and look at the photographs that inspire you - look again - it's the light that makes a 'wow' image 90% of the time.

*A simple reflector can be white cardboard or a white pillowcase.
 
Cheers, will have another go at this on Sunday (only day when we are off together!)
 
It's usually easier to get consistent results against a black background rather than a white/light one. As has already been said, as long as you and your wife are in similar positions you can tweak the lighting in pp to get the different images to match.

Sometimes it's helpful to have a copy of the previous image to hand to make sure your shooting angles match.

I've not yet got a complete progression to show you, I've started one for a client but she's not showing much yet. However, here's an image of a before and after for you, just taken with a black fleece blanket for the background and natural window light.

tp_bump-baby.jpg


Definitely give it a go though, it will be a great record for you both. :)
 
Elli said:
...However, here's an image of a before and after for you, just taken with a black fleece blanket for the background and natural window light....

Definitely give it a go though, it will be a great record for you both. :)
Click to expand...

Beautiful photo
 
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