Advice/Suggestions on Baby Photos

AlfyB

AlfyB

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Ian
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Hi, some of my good friends have just had a baby boy (2 weeks old) and I'm going over to meet him at the weekend.

I've asked my friends if they'd let me have a go at doing some photos for them. It's mainly so I can get some experience because I don't normally photograph people and if it all goes wrong there is nothing lost.

Anyway, I was wondering if any one has any tips or suggestions for things to keep in mind when setting up and taking the shots?
 
Best bet really is to read through the posts that others have done, learn of their mistakes that have been highlighted to them so you don't make the same errors.
Also there are some super ideas on here as well to help inspire you.
Search baby and go through them
 
One important tip is don't hide behind the camera all the time.

Set the camera on a tripod, spend little time viewing through the viewfinder, mainly to frame and focus, but spend more time getting your settings done by using the LCD on top of camera rather than through viewfinder, when you're about to take photos, don't take photos behind the camera, keep looking at the baby, keep smiling, wave a soft toy in one hand, and all that, while at the same time, take photos using a cable release or just use the shutter button.

Let the baby see your face, get the baby interested in you, smile, sing, baby-talk, wave a soft toy, whatever.
 
Thanks folks :thumbs:

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow.
 
Major Eazy said:
One important tip is don't hide behind the camera all the time.

Set the camera on a tripod, spend little time viewing through the viewfinder, mainly to frame and focus, but spend more time getting your settings done by using the LCD on top of camera rather than through viewfinder, when you're about to take photos, don't take photos behind the camera, keep looking at the baby, keep smiling, wave a soft toy in one hand, and all that, while at the same time, take photos using a cable release or just use the shutter button.

Let the baby see your face, get the baby interested in you, smile, sing, baby-talk, wave a soft toy, whatever.
Click to expand...

2 week old babies eyes can't focus on anything, certainly not with both eyes. Unless you are the brightest thing in the room then you are unlikely to influence any conscious movement towards you. At a month they can only focus at object 20-30cm away - too close for you to avoid being in the frame and have them looking at the lens...

Useful information here:

http://www.babycentre.co.uk/a6508/developmental-milestones-sight

That advice might be relevant for older babies, and certainly toddlers/young children but it is largely irrelevant in this case. You would be better placed making sure you use good soft natural light, frame and focus well than dancing around like a loon to entertain them.
 
Thanks Mike, interesting stuff. With the whole sight thing, do you need to take extra care/precautions when using flash?
 
AlfyB said:
Thanks Mike, interesting stuff. With the whole sight thing, do you need to take extra care/precautions when using flash?
Click to expand...

I don't use flash on newborns. As I said my advice is to use good soft natural light, but that for me is more about the look of the images.

I don't believe there is an issue with it wrt damaging their eyes, and I certainly have never had any issues with using flash on 4+ month old children.

HTH
 
meonshore said:
2 week old babies eyes can't focus on anything, certainly not with both eyes. Unless you are the brightest thing in the room then you are unlikely to influence any conscious movement towards you. At a month they can only focus at object 20-30cm away - too close for you to avoid being in the frame and have them looking at the lens...

Useful information here:

http://www.babycentre.co.uk/a6508/developmental-milestones-sight

That advice might be relevant for older babies, and certainly toddlers/young children but it is largely irrelevant in this case. You would be better placed making sure you use good soft natural light, frame and focus well than dancing around like a loon to entertain them.
Click to expand...

I must've speed read, I didn't notice the age carefully, okay fine, point taken.
 
meonshore said:
I don't use flash on newborns. As I said my advice is to use good soft natural light, but that for me is more about the look of the images.

I don't believe there is an issue with it wrt damaging their eyes, and I certainly have never had any issues with using flash on 4+ month old children.

HTH
Click to expand...

I was told you can hurt a baby's eyes if you use flash, better up the ISO and as much natural light as possible,.
 
Gr8Shot said:
I was told you can hurt a baby's eyes if you use flash, better up the ISO and as much natural light as possible,.
Click to expand...

no more than you would hurt mine.


also sitting too close to the tv doesn't damage your eyes either lol
 
Gr8Shot said:
I was told you can hurt a baby's eyes if you use flash, better up the ISO and as much natural light as possible,.
Click to expand...

Well that is my policy as well, but then 95% of my newborn photography session duration is eyes closed / asleep - and my style is very much natural light.

For those where they are awake I'm using a soft light source, and they are rarely eyes to light - maybe 5-6 images made at the end of the session.

I think as most medical advice you'll find it hard to get a consensus of information across even a specialist set of medical professionals. Certainly the web is filled with conflicting "opinion" on this matter and some pretty unbelievable scaremongering.

I don't believe that there is a significant risk of a small amount of soft flash. After all between parents & grand-parents with compacts or phones they will have been flashed a fair amount in the first month of life. You'd also see a ban on the "Bounty Photographer" actually in the maternity wards of hospitals who are using on-camera flash to take those images in the first 1-3 days of life working in full view of specialist baby medical professionals.

On a slightly related note (and I'm not saying it relates to human newborns) but there is a similar conflict of opinion in forums about using flash with wildlife - again stylistically you might not use it - but I asked some zoological professionals about flash with animals like giraffes and their opinion was it wasn't damaging - they cope well with some extreme lightning and because the duration of the flash is short it wasn't considered a medical, or emotion risk - they ignore it.
 
I use a large soft box placed about 1m away 90 degree to the baby's head. You can use the window (natural light) the exact same way too. You need the light to cascade down the baby's face so you can see the little shadow under his nose and not uplit (horror light) or lit up the bottom.

And when you pose him don't just put him on blankets/baskets/props etc and take pictures. Try to show his face (use the unused wraps or small cushion to put under the blanket) to lift his head up and mostly make sure he looks comfortable and safe.

I hope it helps. I have a newborn shoot today too!
Good luck!
 
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Thanks for the tips Emi. Hope your shoot went well.

I thought the lighting was going to be really difficult because it was going to be at night and I've only had my first proper flash for just over a week so still very much a beginner with artificial light.

Anyway, Mum needed to get some rest so the photos are being put off till Sunday afternoon. Hopefully that'll give me more options with day light.
 
My son - shot in a conservatory with a couple of low powered spot lights
Not an expert shot by far but used as much natural light as i could...

0100_zps142b086a.jpg
 
Well, we had the shoot this morning. The weather outside was really grim so without going to really high ISO, I couldn't get the shutter speeds up enough so had to try with flash.

I tried to keep the tips in mind about making sure the baby looked comfortable but don't think I pulled that off to well.

I wasn't expecting it to be easy but things were much harder than I'd expected. Trying to think about light and composition whilst guiding the patents was flooding my mind. I also felt a pressure to work faster than I was probably capable of or comfortable with.

Anyway, it was a fantastic experience that I really enjoyed and will hopefully get chance to do again.

I'll post some shots for review once I've had chance to go through them later this week.

Thanks again everyone.
 
I've posted my favourite 6 in the feed back section here. Would love to hear any comment.
 
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