Newborn photo shoot

[Teresa]

This is a photo shoot I did about 5 months ago and it was my very first photo shoot ever.
Just a reminder, these are all before I edited them
CC welcome
1.

2.

3.

Those are only a few

And these are taken of the same baby 2 months ago
CC welcome
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

 

[wildmaven]

I really love #6, except for the face being slightly overexposed. What a sweet picture! Any mom would just love to have that on their wall!

I see some clothing marks on the skin. How do other child photographers deal with those? Do you have the parents bring them in loose-fitting clothing? I've heard that some remove the child's clothing as soon as they arrive at the studio, so that the marks have time to disappear as you're setting up the lights.

#3 makes me uncomfortable, seeing that rough bracelet next to that tender baby skin! (She's also gotten too big for that "baby in the hand" shot, ha ha!)

 

[Sweetsomedays]

I love that last one.

I'm not digging the material you used, though I really like the colors. It's to shiny (but perhaps thats a taste thing). You can see all the creases and what not. It kinda detracts from how cute that lil baby is!

 

[Ajay]

I agree with sweetsomedays about your backdrops. Definitely try to find something softer like a velvet maybe that isn't going to reflect the light like that.
I've just looked through the three threads you posted and honestly almost all of your shots look overexposed. Can you tell us a bit about your lighting setup and what settings you used? I think you are on the right track with your posing and ideas, but learning how to use your lighting better will make a huge difference.

 

[.Serenity.]

The creases are very distracting to me.
To correct the over exposure can be helped by changing your images to black and white and playing with the contrast.
But you have some very beautiful shots, #3 and 6 really stand out to me.

 

[Ajay]

Can you show us some of the edited versions? You may very well have fixed some of the things that we are pointing out.

 

[Teresa]

I have a sony cybershot DSC-H5...my camera flash DOES NOT come off and I have 2 slave flashes.
i was working in my living room, the backdrop was as far as it could go on the wall and we had a HUGE A$$ couch in the way so we didnt have a lot of room to manuever between the wall, the couch, the lights, the tripod and everyone in the room
these are all UNedited. i edited these for prints but these on here are UNedited.
well i can post here in this forum to get advice from the professionals to see what i can do to better myself

 

[Teresa]

EDITED VERSIONS

 

[Teresa]

MORE EDITED VERSIONS

(by the way, I am letting you know that the mom picked out a lot of the edited and unedited....she felt they were "natural")

 

[bellacat]

Why did you post unedited versions first? I think you should have shown us these edited versions to begin with.

 

[Teresa]

so you like the edited versions? or are they still trash and am i still not good enough?

 

[Sweetsomedays]

If you got them more correct in camera you wouldn't have to do so much editing.
I like the one of the baby and the necklace and the feet. I don't like the second edit of the baby and the necklace it doesn't make sense to me. The face and arms are a different color then the rest of the body.
I really do suggest you learn some more and play with whatever light you are using it is so strong, harsh and close it's ruining allot of what would other wise be perfectly good images.
If you aren't going to take the critique offered by people then why bother posting your photos?

 

[jols]

she wanted c/c but people were just telling her they were no good.

 

[Teresa]

thanks jols

again...i know i am suppose to place the lights at least 6 ft from the subject but when you DO NOT have 6 feet to play with you have to use what you have

 

[Sweetsomedays]

Fine
edit 1 - Lighten the baby. The pink is brighter then your subject and is distracting. It could also use a bit of warming up, the skin tones are very different then the second picture. It's soft for my taste, but thats me.
edit 2 - I like this one allot it's just soft. Again thats a taste thing.
edit 3 - Very creative pose but I think you need to work on your conversion it's muddy, more gray and black. I struggle with B&W conversions sorry I can't help more.
edit 4 - I dig the pose, again soft for me, dark and very noisy.

Seriously if you knock this crit I am not commin back for more. I am learning to and editing is so up in the are cuz it's kind of a creative thing thats different for each person. I still stand by my other statement, if you learn to get these correct in camera you will find your workflow so much easier and less time consuming.