A few more baby shots... (And no, I'm still not a baby photographer)

jamesbjenkins · May 3, 2013

Hey all,

Many of you may remember a thread I posted in February about some portraits I did for a friend/client of mine for their daughter's 9 month celebration. Here's the link for reference:

So, I got the chance to drive back home (we live in Dallas now, about 3 hrs away) for her 1 year portraits. I am very pleased with how these turned out, and will probably be submitting them to some contests or publications at the parents' request.

I'd love some feedback from you all, especially those who shoot babies/kids more than I do. I'm still trying to find a consistent processing vision that I really love, but I think I've been getting a lot closer this year. That's my next big step professionally...developing a recognizable "look".

Enjoy!

1.

2.

3.

'

4.

5.

6.

7. My favorite from the session

ktan7 · May 14, 2013

Great work

Rosy · May 31, 2013

#6 THE BEST

Rosy · May 31, 2013

what are you doing with the editing, adding a lot of vibrance?

jamesbjenkins · Jun 6, 2013

Rosy, I have a very specific look I'm trying to develop. I do quite a few things in the workflow to affect the color, and especially the luminance of the various color channels.

I do bump the vibrance a bit, but not as much as it would seem. If you're outdoors in bright light, underexposing by about a stop usually brings out the maximum natural color from the environment.

Getting everything right in camera consistently is still something I struggle with, but when I do it makes everything "pop" so much nicer...

ronlane · Jun 6, 2013

James, I like #3 and #6 best. The rest are good but those are great imho.

jowensphoto · Jun 6, 2013

The processing is $$. Whatever you're doing, I say you're doing it right!

I love #6, wonderfully innocent expression you caught there.

jamesbjenkins · Jun 6, 2013

jowensphoto said:
The processing is $$. Whatever you're doing, I say you're doing it right!

I love #6, wonderfully innocent expression you caught there.

Thanks, Jess! I've spent more hours than I care to admit tweaking and experimenting with things in LR to get to this point. I'm sure my processing style will continue to evolve over the course of time.

In case you're curious, the processing for this set is a heavily modified VSCO film preset, Fuji Superia 800 to be exact. I've messed with a bunch of things to make it mine, most notably the shadows and midtone contrast, black and white points and the luminance values on the red, yellow, orange and green sliders.

I really like the look of some of the VSCO stuff, but it's typically very flat right out of the box. I prefer a lot more punch in my images.

Thanks so much for the kind words, all! Now if only I could consistently get these kinds of winners out of my brides...

gregtallica · Jun 12, 2013

I love your style, these are amazing/inspiring. How are you getting such great OOF background? That's one of the things that stands out on these, they're all so sharp on your subject and the backgrounds are perfectly blurred in each one.

jamesbjenkins · Jun 13, 2013

gregtallica said:
I love your style, these are amazing/inspiring. How are you getting such great OOF background? That's one of the things that stands out on these, they're all so sharp on your subject and the backgrounds are perfectly blurred in each one.

Thanks for the kind words! That milky background is thanks to using a 70-200 f/2.8G for these images and positioning myself so I can get between 130mm and 200mm and get the composition I'm looking for. The 3 variables that control how the OOF areas of the background appear are aperture, focal length and distance to the subject. Every decent photographer is perfectly aware of the first two, but the distance to the subject (and the distance between the subject and their background) is just as important.

If you look at the EXIF data on these, you'll find everything here shot at f/2.8 and a focal length of at least 130mm-140mm. I'm on my work computer and I don't have any of my photography software on here, or else I'd just post the actual EXIFs.

frommrstomommy · Jun 13, 2013

3 and 6 are my favs here! love the look as well.

pisto1981 · Jun 13, 2013

What a beautiful girl! #6 is lovely

kathyt · Jun 13, 2013

Very cute poses. Some are out of focus and your WB is all over the place. Your missing light in the eyes on several. A reflector is great for these kind of shoots. If you have a certain style you like then make sure you sync your session in PP to the best of your ability so all of the images flow together nicely. If you whiten the the white part of the eyes or sharpen them, keep it subtle. A little goes a long way. Your shallow DOF is a great choice in these and it makes the little girl really shine.

gregtallica · Jun 17, 2013

jamesbjenkins said:
Thanks for the kind words! That milky background is thanks to using a 70-200 f/2.8G for these images and positioning myself so I can get between 130mm and 200mm and get the composition I'm looking for. The 3 variables that control how the OOF areas of the background appear are aperture, focal length and distance to the subject. Every decent photographer is perfectly aware of the first two, but the distance to the subject (and the distance between the subject and their background) is just as important.

If you look at the EXIF data on these, you'll find everything here shot at f/2.8 and a focal length of at least 130mm-140mm. I'm on my work computer and I don't have any of my photography software on here, or else I'd just post the actual EXIFs.

Beautiful, thanks a bunch for the tip. So, that must put you pretty far away from the subject, based on my phone app calculator, you're probably about 14-20 feet away from your subject a lot of the time?

I can't wait to try this out a bit. You're down on her level, these are just great.