Still I wanted to make at least a few photographs that would stand out and satisfy my artistic demands The only solution I could come up with was to shoot close-up shots of Eric so that background wouldn’t matter much. Three of those shots I chose to present here.

The key aspect of the following photographs is the light. It is different in all three of them, but in each photo it plays very important role.

For the following photograph I used a 100mm Canon macro lens at f2.8. I had a flash with me and tried to use it, bouncing from the ceiling or walls and varying its power, but I didn’t like the results – the light was too harsh and too white for my taste. Yes I could use a 1/4 CTO gel to warm up the light a little bit, but I choose a different approach instead – I asked my friend to take Eric and come closer to the window.

It was about 5 o’clock in the afternoon and sun light was still pretty strong, but was already getting warmer as sun got lower and lower. After positioning the happy couple the way that there were no significant shadows on Eric’s face I started to shoot, and the photo below was the winner of that batch. I like it because of the intimacy it transmits to the viewer, the closeness between the child and his parent. Because the light coming from the window was much stronger than the light in the room I could set the exposure so that the background remained completely black.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

For the next two photos I used a 70-200mm f4 L Canon zoom lens at f4.

In the next photo I took Eric to another window in the house, with transparent white curtains to serve as background. I intentionally went for the high contrast in lighting in order to create a little drama. But nevertheless as you can see there are no harsh shadows on Eric’s face, that would be unaesthetic for my taste. I like the way his eyes are emphasized in this photograph as if they were eyes of an adult but on a cute baby face.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

I also included the photo below in this article to demonstrate use of reflected light. In this photograph my friend hold’s Eric close to his body, and the light from the window reflects from his body and lights Eric’s face with soft warm light. So in order to create warm light you don’t always need gels and flashes… sometimes human skin can do the job just fine!

Click on the photo to enlarge.

What additional tips can you share regarding photographing babies? Did you like the photographs presented here?

As always comments are highly appreciated, and

Remember, you only have to enter your name to leave a comment!

Till the next time,
Take care!
Greg.

My lighting equipment was pretty simple: Two flashes (Canon 430EX and Yongnuo) One flash was used as a main light placed on a light stand shooting through umbrella. Second flash was also on a stand but without umbrella used mostly as fill light or hair light. I had a piece of black fabric for the background, but in any case my ambient light was pretty low and most of the light came from flashes.

This portrait is pretty straight forward. I think that my lighting is a little harsh, and I don’t have a hair light from the left/top to separate the model from the background. I could say that I intended it to be that way… but I didn’t

In the next two photographs I experimented with different facial expressions that in my opinion suited the model. I chose B&W because of two main reasons:
1. There were not many colors in the scene anyway, and I wanted to make the viewer concentrate on the expression of the model.
2. I confess – I couldn’t achieve the skin tone that I wanted.

I noticed an undesirable shadow near model’s right eye only after the shoot so I couldn’t do much about it, but I sure will pay more attention to this kind of details in the future.

While shooting I asked my model for different poses (even though it was a strictly portrait shoot, I think that pose affects the facial expression), and at first I took all the control. What I mean is that I told her what to do, where to look, where to turn her head, etc.
But at some point I told her to feel free to do what she wanted, to pose as she would like to be photographed herself. And it was the best decision I ever made in that shoot.
Just look at the following photos.

And as she got more relaxed I could get more interesting photographs. Here is an example of one, which I especially like:

I felt great after this photo session because finally I got to try something that I thought a great deal of. I doubted that I could get any satisfactory results. And though I do understand that I have a long way to go from here, I still really like these photos and they keep me motivated to continue improving my skills.

I will be more than grateful for any comments or suggestions. Feel free to comment on my work – it will help me and other readers a lot!

And here is one last photo from that photo session:

Until next time,
Take Care!
Greg.