Newborn shoot

[crimbfighter]

Greetings! I did a newborn shoot for a friend on mine. I also snapped a few of their three year old daughter when she would sit still. I haven't sent them the photos yet. These were five of my favorites. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

The full set can be viewed here: http://flickr.com/gp/54751692@N08/490cQ7/

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

 

[PropilotBW]

Nice shots. I like the toes/rings shot, and #5 is adorable!
I gotta say, seeing a baby on the bookshelf is a first for me. What's the idea behind this? Not sure if I like it or not. I found myself looking at the book titles more than the child.

edit: and it's also a little risky as it's a falling hazard.

 

[paigew]

44, 99, 118...those are my favorites from the set (on flickr).

The thing about the set is that they are all pretty similar. Try to get totally different images/comps on every photo.

 

[pixmedic]

baby on a bookshelf? love the shot! not overly keen on a baby on a ledge, just on principle. (or is it composite?)
love the baby feet with rings! great DOF on that, and wonderful pose!
#3 though....the DOF is killing it for me here. the babys back and butt are noticeably OOF, as well as the back part of the hat, which i find distracting on a horizontal pose.
I think a little smaller aperture for that shot would have been better.
#5 is a great shot as well. im not personally super keen on B&W, but it seems to work well here.

 

[crimbfighter]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! I totally understand everyone's gut reaction of the book shelf being a falling hazard! Rest assured, though, there were three sets of hands literally just out of the frame on high alert, all poised to shoot in with the smallest of wiggles from this little guy. Without them, I wouldn't even have attempted the shot. Safety was absolutely our first priority when shooting in the book shelf!

Nice shots. I like the toes/rings shot, and #5 is adorable!
I gotta say, seeing a baby on the bookshelf is a first for me. What's the idea behind this? Not sure if I like it or not. I found myself looking at the book titles more than the child.

edit: and it's also a little risky as it's a falling hazard.

Thanks for the comments! As to the idea, I had seen a photo a while back of a baby next to some books, and my mind just ran with it and took a step farther. To be honest, I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but I liked it once I started shooting. I think the fact that I hadn't seen it done was also what attracted me to the idea! There are also a couple more in the full set that are on the shelf, but don't have any books in the frame. Don't know if that's the deciding factor or not, though, on liking it or not.

44, 99, 118...those are my favorites from the set (on flickr).

The thing about the set is that they are all pretty similar. Try to get totally different images/comps on every photo.

This is something I definitely struggle with. I find I simply don't have the poses in my repertoire... I don't really know where to look to grow in that area, either. Any suggestions?

I also find, and maybe this ISN'T the way I should be approaching it, that I see little flaws in each of them, and as a result, I keep thinking to myself that the parents might see the same flaws and prefer one over another for some reason, so I try to give them options within a given pose/comp. Especially since I don't have a ton of variety. Though now that I type this out, it seriously sounds like I'm compensating for quality with quantity...

baby on a bookshelf? love the shot! not overly keen on a baby on a ledge, just on principle. (or is it composite?)
love the baby feet with rings! great DOF on that, and wonderful pose!
#3 though....the DOF is killing it for me here. the babys back and butt are noticeably OOF, as well as the back part of the hat, which i find distracting on a horizontal pose.
I think a little smaller aperture for that shot would have been better.
#5 is a great shot as well. im not personally super keen on B&W, but it seems to work well here.

Thanks pixmedic! Reference my above mention about safety, but I certainly won't dismiss your concern. I definitely see the issue with the DOF on #3. That's something I've tried to be more conscious of, but clearly it wasn't quite there yet.. These were all taken with natural light, except for the foot shot, and I think that limits me in my available DOF. I find I don't like to go above ISO3200, which indoors tends to limit me to f/2.8 and below.. Perhaps I should invest in another speedlight and softbox so I can work more in the f/5.6 range..

 

[IgsEMT]

Unlike other folks I didn't look at every image specifically so my feedback is going to be very general.
Newborns, FIRST have to be sleeping. I know it isn't always possible but having 1 sleepy image out of bunch awakes means baby wasn't sleeping. Add heater and white noise.

Newborns have to be naked, that is how they can be squeezed into various poses, add the sleeping factor YOU can mold them into various poses.

I'm editing, get rid of the reds on the baby, smooth out the skin.

Clean the gig up. Less IS more. Its better to give 10 really good images then 30bad ones (I didn't count the actual number you have).

Light you've received tons of feedback on dof and such so I won't go there. I use 2 alienbees 400s, one with softbox and other with shoot through umbrella. Both at lowest possible power 4-6 feet away from the child , 1/200sec, iso 100, f/2-2.8 (50 1.4).

I entered photography from wedding end of it and 15yrs later working with a
dults and older kids is what I knew. When my wife and I opened our own studio and somehow kids got attracted to us I had to RELEARN everything about photo techniques....
Newborn photography is its own entity, if you truly want to learn it, find a newborn photographer whose work you admire and take workshops

Good luck
Joe

 

[paigew]

This is something I definitely struggle with. I find I simply don't have the poses in my repertoire... I don't really know where to look to grow in that area, either. Any suggestions?

I also find, and maybe this ISN'T the way I should be approaching it, that I see little flaws in each of them, and as a result, I keep thinking to myself that the parents might see the same flaws and prefer one over another for some reason, so I try to give them options within a given pose/comp. Especially since I don't have a ton of variety. Though now that I type this out, it seriously sounds like I'm compensating for quality with quantity...

.

I would say that as the photographer, you need to choose. You should not be giving the client 8 shots,of basically the same thing. All your shots are shot from the front, the same distance away. You should challenge yourself to get 5 totally different shots out of every pose. Recently when my friend brought her two kids over for a playdate her baby fell asleep while we were outside, so we put her in a wagon. The background was awful, a pile of my husbands construction junk, so this was a super challenging "shoot". I got all these shots with one lens (50mm), without moving her at all.

 

[crimbfighter]

Unlike other folks I didn't look at every image specifically so my feedback is going to be very general.
Newborns, FIRST have to be sleeping. I know it isn't always possible but having 1 sleepy image out of bunch awakes means baby wasn't sleeping. Add heater and white noise.

Newborns have to be naked, that is how they can be squeezed into various poses, add the sleeping factor YOU can mold them into various poses.

I'm editing, get rid of the reds on the baby, smooth out the skin.

Clean the gig up. Less IS more. Its better to give 10 really good images then 30bad ones (I didn't count the actual number you have).

Light you've received tons of feedback on dof and such so I won't go there. I use 2 alienbees 400s, one with softbox and other with shoot through umbrella. Both at lowest possible power 4-6 feet away from the child , 1/200sec, iso 100, f/2-2.8 (50 1.4).

I entered photography from wedding end of it and 15yrs later working with a
dults and older kids is what I knew. When my wife and I opened our own studio and somehow kids got attracted to us I had to RELEARN everything about photo techniques....
Newborn photography is its own entity, if you truly want to learn it, find a newborn photographer whose work you admire and take workshops

Good luck
Joe

Thanks for the suggestions, Joe! Much appreciated! Though newborns will probably never become a large part of who I shoot, I still take every opportunity I can to improve.

I would say that as the photographer, you need to choose. You should not be giving the client 8 shots,of basically the same thing. All your shots are shot from the front, the same distance away. You should challenge yourself to get 5 totally different shots out of every pose. Recently when my friend brought her two kids over for a playdate her baby fell asleep while we were outside, so we put her in a wagon. The background was awful, a pile of my husbands construction junk, so this was a super challenging "shoot". I got all these shots with one lens (50mm), without moving her at all.

That's a great little set! I've actually followed your posts here on TPF for a while, and really enjoy your work. I like the idea of trying to get 5 shots from each pose. That's a really good idea, actually. Thanks for the suggestion! I've already decided I'm nixing most of the duplicative photos. I think it will help clean up the set. One of my fiance's supervisors is having a baby in a month or so. That will give me an opportunity to work on it some more!