First Non-Personal Shoot

[mrs.hankIII]

Sister in law asked if I could do a shoot with her little girl. Baby is 6 weeks today, and I've never taken pictures of anyone other than my own child. So this was a little nerve wrecking. I bombed the first half of it, think I did okay with the last portion. Not in this to make money, so I feel a little better knowing I bombed the first half and I'm not charging her anything, haha.

Here is my favorite so far. C&C is greatly appreciated!

 

[mrs.hankIII]

I'm not digging the shadow across half of baby's face. I was using natural light coming from the right hand side. Thinking I should have angled the entire setup more towards the window?

 

[Vince.1551]

Aww so cute


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[Derrel]

Some day that will be a simply treasured family photo! It has a lot going on for it, even though the style of it is not "2010's". The fairly strong but broad side-lighting causes some slight shadowing and reveals texture, and the light is a bit on the cool side, color temperature wise, and I think there's a wee bit too much yellow in the mother's arm skin tones. What I like about this, which looks like a big window's light, is the shadowy parts! The "real baby expression" is also priceless! I think shots like this are really best evaluated wayyyyyy in the future--not this week, not next year, but 25 years from now, and beyond. And for that, I say this is a successful photograph.

 

[mrs.hankIII]

All I used was the light from the window. Shut off the lights in the room and didn't use my pop up flash. Some of them turned out decent, like this one. Others...not so much.

Thank you for your insight. I should grab the RAW version and play with it, but right now I'm sort of content and just want to see it for a few more days to get the new feel off of it, and then start messing with it.

Thank you! Very much appreciated!

 

[JoeW]

First, thanks for sharing. And it's a lovely photo. As Darrel pointed out, this will be a treasured family photo.

Second, here's the single most important piece of information for shooting infants and boudoir work: soft light is your friend. If you use an artificial light (popup flash, speed light, strobe, light in the room from an artificial source) then get a modifier in front of it or bounce it off a white wall or ceiling. If you've got a window, unless it's a gray overcast day, put a scrim in front of it. It softens skin, hides pores/scars/imperfections, and makes everyone 20% more beautiful than they appear.

 

[Derrel]

First, thanks for sharing. And it's a lovely photo. As Darrel pointed out, this will be a treasured family photo.

Second, here's the single most important piece of information for shooting infants and boudoir work: soft light is your friend. If you use an artificial light (popup flash, speed light, strobe, light in the room from an artificial source) then get a modifier in front of it or bounce it off a white wall or ceiling. If you've got a window, unless it's a gray overcast day, put a scrim in front of it. It softens skin, hides pores/scars/imperfections, and makes everyone 20% more beautiful than they appear.

JoeW makes a really good point about modifying window light--especially for color photography, and especially for color photography of delicate, feminine subject matter, like a new baby girl!!! But one thing to keep in mind--if you are going to convert a shot made with that type of window lighting to Black & White, that little extra bit of crispness to the light as it comes in, unmodified by a scrim or umbrella, can work pretty well.

One thing about window light too is that the closer you get to the window, the faster the inside-the-room side falls off in intensity. If you shoot reallly close to the window, one side of the face will be bright, and the other side of the face will be in VERY dark shadow; as the distance from the window is increased, the light's degree of fall-off levels out, and the light side of the shot, and the darker side of the shot, become very close in exposure once you are well toward the center of the room.

So...keep in mind, window light behaves like other light sources do. So, as Joe was saying, soft light is your friend, yes, and especially so in color. One way to get "softer" light is to move a little bit farther toward the center of the room, so the light is softer in the sense of a more-gentle highlight-to-shadow transition.

On this baby shot, in color, I would be tempted to brighten it a bit, and lower the clarity into the Negative 5 to 8 range, to soften the light a tiny bit. If I converted it to B&W, I think it'd be about right as-is. And I DO think you have the right idea in regard to waiting a while before making the final edits! That almost always works out best for me.

 

[mrs.hankIII]

Okay, I think I understood all of that, haha!

For this one. it was a gray overcast day and I was afraid there wouldn't be enough light coming through. As I said, I went for it anyways and shut off the lights and didn't use a pop up. So should I have moved them more away from the light, is that what I'm getting? In my mind (and it's probably wrong, haha) I thought I should have angled them more TOWARDS it but this is my first time doing this. I'm going to be doing another shoot here in a few days (baby is on his way right as we speak!) so all of this will get written down and utilized!

Thank you!

 

[mrs.hankIII]

Here's one that I wish had be composed better. That background, gross.

 

[bribrius]

Aww so cute


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everyone always says babies are cute, but I don't see it I actually think the majority of them are pretty ugly. Even my own kids I don't think I could say they were cute until at least near a year old.
Especially when they first come out and are all puckered and slimy. People are like "so cute!". It's like "yeah right, you don't have to lie about it geez"

 

[mrs.hankIII]

Like a wrinkled old potato, haha!

 

[snerd]

Aww so cute


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everyone always says babies are cute, but I don't see it I actually think the majority of them are pretty ugly. Even my own kids I don't think I could say they were cute until at least near a year old.
Especially when they first come out and are all puckered and slimy. People are like "so cute!". It's like "yeah right, you don't have to lie about it geez"

 

[Derrel]

Okay, I think I understood all of that, haha!

For this one. it was a gray overcast day and I was afraid there wouldn't be enough light coming through. As I said, I went for it anyways and shut off the lights and didn't use a pop up. So should I have moved them more away from the light, is that what I'm getting? In my mind (and it's probably wrong, haha) I thought I should have angled them more TOWARDS it but this is my first time doing this. I'm going to be doing another shoot here in a few days (baby is on his way right as we speak!) so all of this will get written down and utilized!

Thank you!

You're doing okay, because you have mostly fairly soft lighting, and you have nice catchlights in the eyeballs, which adds "eye sparkle". Having the window light crossing the plane of the nose causes one side of the face to have a bit of shadowing, which reveals both shape, and reveals texture. if the people are directly facing right INTO the window, and you shoot from off to the side, then there are no catchlights reflected. If you stand with the window at your back, and they look directly toward you and the window, then there are big catchlights in their eyeballs, and you might show up as a tiny black figure in the middle of the eyeball catchlights. So...there is no one right way to do this.

The way you positioned the baby and mom, and the baby in relation to the window in these two shots is perfectly fine, as long as that's what you want for a lighting effect. It's fine. It's not the "only" way to do it. You have a d-slr, so you can shoot, and review, and see how the light looks on different possible set-ups. Keep in mind, if the day is gloomy, do not be afraid to boost that ISO level up to 640 or 800!

 

[Patrice]

Okay, I think I understood all of that, haha!

What Derrel is referring to has to do with the effect on exposure with changes in relative distance from source to subject.

The window is the light source (not the sky behind it) so when you are one foot away from it the exposure will change by one full stop if you move only 5 inches further away. However if you start off at 10 feet from the window you'd have to move a further 4 feet to see a one stop change in the light levels. This is fundamental with any light source.

 

[frommrstomommy]

I think the biggest thing for me in not liking these more is they feel a little bold or something for being baby photos.. the colors are soft pinks, but the processing seems a bit bold. Very defined, dark edging like you had clarity in LR bumped way up or something? I don't know exactly. The shadows in 1 don't bother me too badly.. but the images just lack a certain softness you think of when you think tiny baby photos.