Baby Photo Shoot

First, from Baby’s perspective . . .

I had a rite of passage this weekend – - the proud-parents-of-a-new-baby photo shoot.

I nearly didn’t  survive.

But alas, I rallied my ten little piggies and came through with just one soiled diaper and two or three screams of protest.

And I documented it all,. . . just for you. . .because you wouldn’t do this to your wee babe.

Apparently a hair stylist is a must for every model, no matter how small or nonexistent your tuft of fuzz.

And the make-up artist?  We’ll they’re very good at catching the drool.

By the way, do you like my pondering gaze above?  I was thinking about the advances we’ve made in artificial intelligence and how long it will take engineers to implement it in all facets of the general civilians’ life and the public sector, not just for the private sector or government defense.  And, I was wondering if I could chew on the leather couch.

I had lots of binkie breaks.  They were warm, cozy, too short, and made my union rep happy.

My stand in was a cute fuzzy guy but he didn’t talk much.

Somehow the paparazzi snuck onto the set.

And then finally, after lots of gelling, and primping and changing, they shooed out the paparazzi, got rid of the stand-in, and took away my binkie.

It was time.

Uh guys, why am I wearing the build-a-bear’s glasses?  This is really not cool.

What in Heaven’s name is crawling across the ground?!

Uh Dad, there’s a bug on the grou–hey, why are you pointing that big black thing  at me?  I think you should use it on the bug.

Well, he is kind of a cute bug.

Ha!  Ha!  And now he’s crawling up the tripod to Daddy’s finger.

Hey Mom!  How’s it going back there?

Whoah, Mom!  We’re leaning a bit to the right!

Ha!  Ha!  That bug is jumping on Little Big Man’s head. 

No!  No!  Don’t eat it!

Ha! Ha!  Daddies starting to twitch.

After awhile I’d used up my happy baby quota.  So I pulled the old trick- – letting lunch come up all over my outfit.  And voila!  The shoot was all over.

Since the leather couch was off limits, I went back to my trailer for some much needed chew the fingers time.

From Momma’s Perspective

This was going to be for Baby’s birth announcement so we knew it would take a bit of work.  We had a general concept of what pose we wanted, now it was time to hope for a miracle.

First we waited until late afternoon when Baby would be rested from his nap and the light would be softer and not as direct.  Early morning or late afternoon is the best time to get the most out of your natural light.

We then chose the room to shoot in.  The dining room worked best because the walls are all one solid color of a soft pale yellow that wouldn’t be too overpowering.  We stayed in the corner away from getting the windows directly in the shot but still being able to utilize the natural light that was coming in.

We used two light stands and one tripod.  The first light stand was for the key light.   The key light is a flash that is placed next to the camera – - because it works as the main light source.  The second flash is called the rim light and was placed on the stand behind Baby.  The rim light brightens the edge of the model so that the model stands out from the background.

You’ll notice that the tripod with the flash has an umbrella in front of it.  These are small white umbrellas that are great for diffusing the harshness of the flash so it looks like a photo and not a Mel Gibson mug shot.

The round white thing taped to the window on the right side is a reflector.  It does two things:  1) catches some of the light from the flash on the tripod; and 2) prevents too much sunlight from coming in the window.

Because any baby does not have a lot of patience or happy time, we did as much set-up as possible before bringing Baby into the room. We used one of the kid’s stuffed animals as a stand-in to check the lighting and see what still needed to be adjusted.

We had the clothes already picked out and ready to go as soon as Baby was up and happy.  I should have had a second outfit as back-up, but that means doing laundry.  And, well, Sunday is the sabbath and I shall not toil on the Sabbath.

I love Sundays.

Also, his five little wee hairs were soft and flat that day so we used a little gel to get his tuft to stay up a bit.

Once we started shooting, he started drooling . . . he must have liked the make-up gal.  I had a diaper cloth on hand to catch the run away dribbles and surprise spit-ups before they got on his outfit.

Some professionals say the ideal age to photograph a Baby is in the first two weeks, because they are very mold-able when they sleep and there is no baby acne yet.  Otherwise they suggest you wait until baby is after 6 months old, because they can usually sit up on their own at that point and they smile.  We missed the two week window with Baby and didn’t want to wait until 6 months.  We decided he was at a great point because he was starting to smile.  But, of course, he needed help sitting up.  Hence, I sat behind him during the shoot to support him.  We knew I’d be “photo-shopped” out of the photo after the fact.  But clearly in the photo below we needed a better angle so there wasn’t so much of me to remove.

This was better.

But now we had to figure out the prop.  We wanted a book for a literary slant on the title.  In this case the book is too prominent in the photo so we laid it down.

We would shoot for about three minutes at a time and then he would want a break.   During this time the Mister made any needed adjustments to the lighting and after about five minutes Baby would be ready to go again.

And we began to snap the pictures.

Like crazy.

Contemplative.

Cute contemplative.

Deer in the headlights?

Blast those stray limbs that just don’t want to stay put!

Look up Baby!  Look up!

The ground is much more interesting.

And the make-up gal is very cute.  Maybe we could do dinner!

And. . .

we. . .

have. . .

a. . .

Winner!

The Mister made some changes in Photoshop, and we had a finished product!

Tags: family, new baby, photography