First Infant shoot

Wiren

Man, that is a tough gig. This baby (my nephew) was fussy unless he was being held, some of the poses mom & dad wanted were uncomfortable for baby. I do not envy anybody who does infants professionally, I don't shoot people too often, but enjoyed the challenge and practice.

C&C welcome, I know some of the poses may not be great, really looking for comments on the lighting and PP aspects of it all. Info on the shoot?, sure; I was working in a 12x12 room (their new house is full of boxes from moving :dunno I used a black felt backdrop, my 25/2.8 prime with my Oly FL-36 flash bounced off the wall/ceiling behind me (batteries on my remote cactus died :cry) I shot for four hours (in between baby calming and feeding breaks). Thanks ahead for any comments.

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ivar

I think you did great for your first infant session!

Lighting in general looks good, especially considering you had a single flash to work with. Some of the shots do seem to be a but underexposed though.

#1 and #2 are really nice and top #3, pose wise, I think. Opinions may vary on this one, I think, but I also like #4, I think it's the right-foot that does it for me.
#7 (the feet) I would lighten up a bit and do in b/w, not sepia. The sepia just doesn't work for me here.
For shots like #8 and #10 I would find a different pose, so you don't need the 'helping hand' in the shot.
#9 doesn't really work for me, I think it's the angle. Maybe try it from a lower perspective?
#12 is really nice. The bracelet sleeve may be a bit distracting, but nice anyway.

In general really nice, I'm sure the parents will be very happy!

Wiren

ivar wrote:

I think you did great for your first infant session!

Lighting in general looks good, especially considering you had a single flash to work with. Some of the shots do seem to be a but underexposed though.

#1 and #2 are really nice and top #3, pose wise, I think. Opinions may vary on this one, I think, but I also like #4, I think it's the right-foot that does it for me.
#7 (the feet) I would lighten up a bit and do in b/w, not sepia. The sepia just doesn't work for me here.
For shots like #8 and #10 I would find a different pose, so you don't need the 'helping hand' in the shot.
#9 doesn't really work for me, I think it's the angle. Maybe try it from a lower perspective?
#12 is really nice. The bracelet sleeve may be a bit distracting, but nice anyway.

In general really nice, I'm sure the parents will be very happy!

Thanks Ivar! I pretty much did color/sepia/B&W for most all the shots so Mum & Pop could choose what they like (when I go pro-bono for family, i tend to go all out as much as possible, I even spent $30 in felt backdrops)
I think I also did the feet in a cold tone that left a very light (on the slightly bluish side) BW version that looked ok also. I was trying to do the ball shot head on so you didn't see the "helping hand", but baby was too fussy to cooperate, so I took what was given. I have #9 in various perspectives, but upon chimping, mom liked this one the best. I tried and tried for finger/hand shots, but by that time baby was so fussy and parents were quite spent after 4 hours of work that they wanted to stop, too bad, I really wanted some good adult/infant hand shots.

Thanks for your reply and comments, maybe next time my radio flash triggers will be charged up so I can play with lighting, but this was new for me, pointing the flash behind me and bouncing it off the high wall/cieling and upping the ISO, I am glad it worked.

Cheers.

Lee

kidzmom

Nice shots and cute baby! I really like basketball shot a lot...really shows how tiny the little guy is! It certainly is hard when they don't want to sleep but you did wonderfully. I'm sure the parents are thrilled

jeffreaux2

To me 4 and 12 are your two best shots.

My advice would be to lose the props...all of them...and let the portraits be about the kid...and be sure to get in super close to catch those macro-ish details of his/her features.