Newborn - C&C please

CorrieMichael · Oct 1, 2013

Derrel said:
Your last two shots are good poses in today's baby photo vernacular, but on the second, the B&W one...ever thought what that would look like as a vertical, with the baby being 80% of the frame, as opposed to horizontal, with 33% empty space, 33% baby, and 33% empty space? Back off the camera a little bit, and orient it as a tall, since that is a "tall pose", and then have the baby shown bigger, and clearer in the frame...and a higher degree of visual sophistication... Maybe your mentoring does not include subject/pose/frame agreement...a lot of modern mentoring is all about how to run the camera and lights, and what software to use, and what software operations to perform on "files" but not much on other areas.

The thing is, the second shot, the B&W hand pose with the little visor...the baby's head is almost touching the top of the frame, as are his elbows at the bottom...the baby is "crowding the frame edges"....AND, to make matters worse, there's tons of dead, empty, featureless space. If you want C&C I will offer this: the pose of the subject needs to be in AGREEMENT with the framing. When the subject is taller than it is wide, the most likely correct framing will be a TALL framing.

I can already hear the screams and protestations of the self-taught and the visually challenged, whose tastes have been set by looking at the work of other self-taught portrait shooters on Flickr and the interwebz. Your two images above look good...except that one of them is framed properly and exudes peace and tranquility, and the other shows a fundamentals problem that ruins it for the visually sophisticated. If your mentoring has NOT taught you this most basic, essential fundamental of classical portraiture, you need to find a new mentor who has some actual training or study in the visual arts,in composition and posing fundamentals, and not just training or self-teaching in camera and software operations.

Well......what actually happened is that it isn't that great of a composite to put together......my images didn't line up properly and so when I was done my composite I had to crop the best way I could with what I had. I have tried shooting this image tall and I can never get it....meaning my composite never turns out properly. I guess when I have a client ask for this I just go the safe route so that I can make it work......maybe what I should do is shoot both so I can ensure I get it and also practice on the other orientation.......hoping that one day I can get that as well. Newborn mentoring is really a lot of in studio what to do's and how to get baby posed......I tell ya being there and watching it get done then trying it yourself though are two very different things........pfffft yes she covered in camera and how to edit a newborn per say, although I have adopted my own things I like to do along the way.......generally composition other than getting the baby in the pose wasn't really discussed.