Newborn photography

Newborn photography is very fun, but it needs to be handled with lots of care. A newborn child is very vulerable and needs to be handled carefully at all times. While some photographers hang their baby models in nets and stand them up in baskets, I choose not to do that because I find it very dangerous and when I look at the phographs I can't help but imagine the millions of things that could go wrong. I prefer to keep my newborn photographs simple.

The types of poses that you see below are performed by proffesionals. Do not attemp this at home. Seriously.

(I would use my own photographs, but i lost them when my computer crashed)

When you take photos of newborns you need to focus on one thing and one thing only: the comfort of the baby. Babies are very fragile and if you don't feel 100 % comfortable with the pose you want to do, then don't do it. NEVER force a baby into a pose, it has to be natural and comfortable for the baby. In a newborn photograph, it is very popular for the baby to be asleep, and cuddled in small cute positions. Your baby should be under fourteen days old for you to be able to successfully achieve this position. They should also be over five days old though, because they are normally very red when theyre this young. Of course, babies sleep a lot, so it shouldn't be that hard to photograph a sleeping baby, but the best time is to do it early in the morning when babies are normally in their best mood and sleep the most soundly. You also should make sure that the room your photographing in is very warm. Babies have a hard time keeping their body temperture up, especially with no clothes. If your sweating then it is perfect temperture for the baby. Don't use heaters that could burn the babies skin though.

Another important thing when dealing with newborns photograph is props. Ever newborn photograph out there now adays contains some form of knitted hat or antique box. Let me give you a tip: never buy the proffesional props because they are always overpriced. I have an old coke crate that I got from a garage sale for five bucks and they sell the same one on a photography prop site for sixty dollars. Save yourself the money and go to a garage sale, having the proffesional label isn't worth it. Anything can be used as a prop. I can make a huge list of simple things that can make great props. One extremely simple set up is to use a bean bag with a blanket or faux fur.

bean bag with faux fur

Be creative, there are a ton of things you can use as props. Heres a list of a few:

-wooden crates

-dresser drawers

-barrels (be careful!)

-baby wraps

-knitted hats/diaper covers/blankets

-headbands

-suitcases

-washtubs

-hatboxs

-baskets

-pillows

-baskets

-chairs

-blocks

-carriages

-flower pots

-blankets, blankets, and more blankets

every single prop that you use should include some type of blanket or faux fur. It is very important that your babies skin never comes in contact with hard sufaces like the ones in wooden boxes or metal washtubs. Remember, a simple picture of a baby sleeping soundly on a beautiful baby blanket can be just as pretty as an intricate photograph.   

Lenses & Depth of Field

Unblurred background



Blurred Background



 

Sometimes when you take a photograph the background appears blurry, but other times its crystal clear. Sometimes you want a completely unblurry photograph, but it comes out blurry and sometimes it’s the other way around. Do you wonder why this happens? Well this is called depth of field, which basically means the amount of blur your photograph has. Depth of field is affected by three important things, the space between you and your subject, the length of your camera lens, and the aperture. To describe this simply, if you are very close to your subject (like the flower shown above) then you tend to get more blur. If you stand farther away, then you will have less blur. The length of your lens is extremely important. You see, the photograph of the flower was taken with a 30-700mm lens and the one of the girl was taken with a 15-55mm lens. This means that the 700mm lens is a larger lens than the 55mm lens, so there is more blur. Your blur is also affected by your aperture.  The larger the aperture number is, then the less blur there is. This means that if your aperture is f/8.0 then there will be less blur than if you have it set to f/2.8. When you control these three elements, then you can control your depth of field. Of course it can be a lot more complicated than this, but this is as far into the subject as I dare go. Your depth of field also helps you gain the “bokeh” effect that everyone loves. Bokehs are the square-like lights that show up in your picture when it’s blurry. When you make your background very blurry, then you can achieve bokeh.  

 Bokeh