I love babies and this year we have had 2 new babies come into our extended family,my youngest sister and my daughter both had a baby. I now have 6 grandchildren. It is so strange how a baby can make you feel old and young at the same time.
I love to take images of newborns and even though they don’t move around like older children it can be just as difficult to get a good shot. Here are a few tips to get some great images of your newborn (or borrow one,most new mom’s are exhausted but would love some photos of their babies in return for letting you practice on them) Newborn babies spend most of their time sleeping so most of your images will probably be of sleeping baby
If you want to get some images of baby with their eyes open you will need to be there for awhile and be patient and wait for baby to wake up or enlist the help of older siblings to wake up baby (they are good at that).
When taking photos of baby don’t be rushed,take lots of shots and be calm and don’t expect the perfect pose. Just to get my granddaughter to hold her feet together in her mom’s hand in the shot below took quite a few shots,her feet were cold and she kept kicking and trying to move.
Use natural light whenever possible by placing baby near a large window,on camera flash is harsh and not very flattering to the newborn wrinkly skin and blemishes. When using lights keep them soft and bounce flash if possible.
Use simple props like a pretty bow or blanket or a beanbag chair to prop them up but keep it simple,the image is about the baby not the object. Get down low and take photos close up,don’t forget to take closeups of their tiny hands and feet.
Take images that capture emotion and tell a story,tiny feet in mom’s hand,a tiny hand clutching dad’s finger,etc. Big brother meeting baby for the 1st time. These are the images that will be the most treasured,not the perfect posed shot with a prop that takes center stage.
This photo of my grandson with his new sister is one of my favorites and yet the composition is bad,the lighting is bad not a technically good image at all but the emotion is shown on his face and that is what makes it perfect.
Remember the most important part of photography is telling a story with images. Flawless images and perfect poses are something we can practice and work toward,but capturing emotion and freezing time is the reason we want to capture images in the first place.
Bridget
Are you looking for photography inspiration? We all find times when we are not inspired to do even the things we love. I have been experiencing a bit of a lack of inspiration right now so I thought I would share some tips I am using to inspire myself. Even though I am surrounded by nature’s beauty and I have a beautiful family that are willing photo subjects (most of the time) I still find myself in a photo rut.
Today is the last day of another year and I have taken so many photos that are starting to clog my computer space,at the end of every year I declutter my digital photo files and make backup copies of all my photos. I don’t keep all my photos on my computer because there is just too many of them and I don’t want to lose them if my computer ever crashes. During the year I organize my photos by month and in each month I have files of different days,events etc,some months may only have 1 or 2 files and others have a lot. I don’t take the time to rename and label all my photos but I can easily find something when I am looking for it. I print up my photos for albums so I don’t have them in digital albums but I still want to be able to have the files for reprints etc.
