Baby Coltin, 17 Days - My First Newborn Shoot

met

My friend just had a baby and asked me to shoot some pictures for her. He was born preemie, so even though he is 17 days old he is still less than 6 pounds. I've never shot a newborn before, so I reviewed http://www.kelleyryden.com/babyblog/ and was pretty much in awe.

After culling through them I noticed things that I need to pay particular attention to in the future, but generally I was pretty pleased with how they turned out. I only have a couple processed so far, but here are an initial couple of images.

C&C are much appreciated.


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CTUphoto

that first one is a hoot! it's crazy how they bend when they're that young. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your session!

(that's an awesome link too....thx for the new resource!)

~jb

lilmomma

That baby looks like a pretzel in the first one! how crazy, the only thing for me is that I know it's the left arm that he's resting his face on, but on the other side of his face I can't tell if thats an arm or a leg? Cute expression though! #2 is out of focus, otherwise would've been a cute shot. Do you have any more from the session to post?

met

CTUphoto wrote:

that first one is a hoot! it's crazy how they bend when they're that young. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your session!

Thanks!

met

lilmomma wrote:

#2 is out of focus, otherwise would've been a cute shot. Do you have any more from the session to post?

#2 was a "HE HAS HIS EYES OPEN, HURRY UP" moment. I wasn't quite prepared for it and was super bummed that I didn't hit his eye right in focus. I do have some more. I'm processing them right now, so I'll post them when I get them done. Thanks for the feedback.

Agnieszka

Awwww. So cute. Love the first one, thought watch out with his right arm ... it is sort of hard to say what body part it is

Thanks also for the link. I bought way too many baby props in the last couple of days / weeks, haha, can't wait to get started + it's always really nice to see other photographers (behind the scenes) set-ups

Thanks for sharing. + Post some more!!!!

met

3. Here's another one with his peepers open. It is a little sharper than the b&w one, but I wish it was still a little sharper.


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6. One of the things I noticed as I was culling through them was that I wasn't cognizant of the horizon line through his head. Lesson learned - I'll definitely pay better attention to that in the future. We were working in a cramped space and I think we should have moved some more things around so that we had a larger work area.



7. I know I clipped his arm in this one. We were rearranging a little bit and I all of a sudden one of his eyes opened and I just had to snap this. I wish I would have had more time to frame it.



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9. And here's an outtake. We had just set him in the basket and were trying to figure out his arms, when the dog got curious.



The whole set is HERE on my smugmug.

Agnieszka

OMG!!! 7 & 8 are out of this world

You got quite some keepers here!!

Thanks for sharing!!!!

(Btw, love your new logo / watermark)!

met

Agnieszka wrote:

Awwww. So cute. Love the first one, thought watch out with his right arm ... it is sort of hard to say what body part it is

Thanks also for the link. I bought way too many baby props in the last couple of days / weeks, haha, can't wait to get started + it's always really nice to see other photographers (behind the scenes) set-ups

Thanks for sharing. + Post some more!!!!

Thanks. I regret not moving around him and shooting up through his hands from the other side. Once again shorted sighted thinking in setup space.

I loved going through their blog and the setup shots were very reassuring to me. I just have one SB600 flash and so I loved seeing that they just used beautiful natural light through the window without a bunch of umbrellas and everything. It made me feel more comfortable. We kept trying to get the hands on chin pose or him on his belly, but he didn't want to keep his head up. They make it look so easy in their photos. I definitely would love to take their workshop if I ever decide to take up photography for hire.

kyeezie

I think you did a great job! Although, I still am confused on the first one. I love number 5 though! And the one with the dog. Good job, I am going to go look at all of them now!

l.k.madison

Kelley Ryden is my idol. Really. Now, if only she could be my mentor, too.

I found her about six months ago while looking to do new things with babies at my day job (still-in-hospital-newborns) and I've been in love ever since.

I can't figure out HOW she does half the stuff she does, I just sit and stare. Double slings for twins? Really? That's one brave mother and one daring photographer.

My favorite comment from her flickr "My ovaries just danced a little when I saw this" - I thought I was the only one.

She offers baby posing classes - for $2400 you can go spend the afternoon with her and learn her secrets.

Great series, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE babies in baskets!!

*funny story, tonight we had a mommy/son night out to eat and I ordered a bowl of soup - not knowing how HUGE the bowl would be. The waiter brought it to me and I said "I'm a photographer, and I could SO put a baby in this thing" he laughed and said "I thought I'd heard it all about the size of this bowl, but I've never heard that one."

Check Hobby Lobby if you have one around, they often have half off sales on their baskets, I've spent many a paycheck in there on props.

Great work, he's SO cute!!! It's always the itty bitty ones that make the sweetest pictures.

My3Sons

Beautiful job on your first newborn shoot!!! The only thing I would change on the basket images, would be to move his left arm back so that his elbow is under his head. This would tip his head up a little more. Great job on the shoot! AND I am a big fan of the Baby As Art team too. For more inpiration, do a search on Kelly Ryden as well- she and her sister (Tracy Raver) are also awesome newborn photographers.

-Melissa
www.naturalphotography.smugmug.com
www.naturalphotographydesign.smugmug.com

met

l.k.madison wrote:

Check Hobby Lobby if you have one around, they often have half off sales on their baskets, I've spent many a paycheck in there on props.

Great work, he's SO cute!!! It's always the itty bitty ones that make the sweetest pictures.

Thank you! Hobby Lobby is exactly where we went. The basket was only $5 and they had tons of great options.

met

My3Sons wrote:

Beautiful job on your first newborn shoot!!! The only thing I would change on the basket images, would be to move his left arm back so that his elbow is under his head. This would tip his head up a little more.

Thank you for the tip. I really have a lot to learn about posing and getting them to relax and be malleable. I have another newborn shoot this Friday, so now I have a gauge on what I need to improve on.

kidzmom

These are great! Fab basket. I can't wait to see what you come up with on the shoot this week. I LOVE shooting sleeping babies. You did a great job. The Mom must be thrilled I hope you are already charging. These are super.