Baby shoot

photogmomma · September 4, 2007

As always, CC is welcome!!

These are some friends that have actually had me do 4 photoshoots - and have another one semi-scheduled for the fall! they have really helped me figure out my flow and have been really wonderful clients.

They wanted a few shots of their newest, now 4 months old. It was so fun seeing the oldest and youngest interact! They were so cute together!!!

As a side note, many of these were with my Sigma f2.8. While I love this lens, I'm starting to see why IS would be a good thing. I am off by a fraction in terms of DOF in several of these because i wasn't steady enough.:cry

Although I don't think this is a good representation of what the youngest looks like, it cracked me up! All natural light. (And a bit soft.)
1.

Both boys. I rotated this one and liked it much more. Some small amount of on camera flash bounced off ceiling to fill a bit without distracting. Comments? Did it work well? I need feedback on this, please!

2.

Oldest showing off his piggies - all natural light. CC on cropping? (Yes, his hand is cropped in the original on the left to photographer. :cry )
3.

Just a quick snap of mom and kiddos, but I loved the backlighting. Is it Lynne-like enough to be good?
4.

Another with mom and new baby - the rest are all natural light
5.

Dad was SO cute with the little one! Is the little one too out of focus?
6.

Dad was also a bit of a nut with the little one! Totally cracked me up! (Not happy with the color on this - comments? What is wrong?!? Besides forgetting to use my Whibal. Doh!)
7.

And the oldest one had the cheesiest smile - unless I told him to do a laughing smile. then it was cute! But he sounded like a hyena - as dad thought, too!
8.

CC is always welcome! This is my second ever baby shoot (besides my girls) and my first in 18 months so any comments are more than welcome! I have two more coming up in the next 3 months and want to improve any way I can! Thanks!

(And a few more can be found here.)

saurora · September 4, 2007

Andi I think you will do just superb as a baby photog! These are very special.
#1 Too funny! Yeah a little soft, but the expression!
#2 Is absolutely wonderful! The lighting is perfect!
#3 I don't even notice the cropped hand since the toes are so delightfully in focus I can't take my eyes off of them. Great idea.
#4 Great lighting..seems a little over-exposed, Mom looks a little flat and could use some contrast.
#5 Wish Mom's hair wasn't in her face, but...
#6 I think baby being OOF in this is find....We are focusing on Dad being so smitten over the little one.
#7 The color looks great on my monitor...I'm not seeing a problem.
#8 Big brother sure looks like Dad, doesn't he?

Great bunch.........you did super as always!!!

Scott_Quier · September 4, 2007

1 - Cute but, for the reasons you stated, I don't think the parents will buy it

2 - When you say you rotated this one - how much. I'm thinking that the light looks like it's coming from a funny angle. Most people are used to seeing the bright spots representing light coming from the top of the frame. Aside from this nit, I think this is a real winner. You have a marvelous expression on the faces of both children and how often is that going to happen! :grin

4 - It's a nice snap, but the bright backlighting is trashing image contrast, especially on the mom.

Color image - The color does look a little off. I don't have anything at work to show the numbers, but I'm thinking there may be a magenta/yellow imbalance - too much magenta?

urbanaries · September 4, 2007

1. Ack! a little disturbing! but hilarious.
2. My fave of the bunch. I looove this shot rotated I saw it in its original horizontal form and like this much better. You can "read" both of their faces now. Very sharp, very unique, I would be surprised if they didn't order this one big!
3. a piggies shot!!! Adorable. Foot nicely contrasted against black shirt.

4. HA!!! I like this one, but agree with others it's a bit washed out. I do think burning the mom's hair (and possibly some of her facial features) back to a more natural tone would help immensely. In my experience, some sort of profile or shape for the light to wrap around is necessary to pull this off. I don't think i've had one turn out where they're directly engaging the camera.
5. LOVE this one. I think the hair in her face is very sensual. I would like to see the baby's profile defined a bit more.
6. So cute. Love the emotion on his face. The OOF baby doesn't bother me.
7. Hilarious! does look a tad pink.
8. This is fantastic! I just adore both of their expressions. What a fun duo. I think they'll like this one!!!!

The 70-200 is difficult to use indoors, I totally agree!

adpace · September 4, 2007

Love them all. #1 is just precious & cracks me up! I love their eyes in #2 and love the angle! That boy can really spread out those toes, HA! Such a great photo, I had no idea a hand was missing (lol). I even had to go back and search to see what you meant. But... #5... it's my favorite! I love it! Very well done! Can't wait to check out the rest!!

photogmomma · September 4, 2007

Susan, thank you so much! I've been wanting to get into baby photography, but didn't know anyone having babies.

! Now I know about 4! We'll see what comes of it, though....

Thanks about #4 - I debated on whether it was too flat or not - nice ot have confirmation! And #5 I have found that people either like or don't. I have a few other shots with mom's face and I like those, too, but wanted it mroe about the baby. (She let her hair slide and I had her pull it back after this shot.) And glad the color looks okay to you!

Thanks again!

Scott, it'll be interesting to know if the parents' see this as a "normal" look for the baby - I dont' know him that well. (They live in Denver, I am 4 hours away.) So for all I know, it could be! But we'll see.... Cracks me up!

I'd love to hear your take more on the color! It seems a little off, but then again, I had shots in so many different locations that it could just be that they have different slight casts to them! Oh, and it's not too much magenta for sure. I too most of it out.

! Taht's been an issue I've had lately and thought it might be magenta so I pulled it WAAAY back.

As for the rotation, it's 90 degrees off. When it was rotated the original way, it gave the older boy more precedence. Flipping it 180 gave the younger boy more. So I did it 90 and liked it a LOT more. I might try it 180 from its current position to see if the lighting looks more natural, but frankly it wasn't possible for the setup I had. (That's why I chose rotating it like this!) Thanks for the feedback! And the kind comments!

Lynne, thanks for the comments on the rotation! I thought it got stronger this way, too, and I'm glad to hear you do, too.

The backlight was sort of an "iffy" thing. So far no one really likes it. I'll let them see it, but we'll see if they buy! That's the real test....

Although the Siggy is hard inside, I was still REALLY pleased with the results, honestly. I thought it would be harder, but for the later shots, it was actually easier. I was able to get much further away and allow the mom and dad to have more interaction with the baby....

Thanks again!

Angela, thank you! Aren't those toes hilarious! I'm really glad that the hand didn't show as much as I thought - you know how it is when you stare at a photo too long! Thanks so much for your feedback! I really appreciate it....

Scott_Quier · September 4, 2007

I'll take a look at it this afternoon when I can pop it into PS and look at the numbers. The monitor I have at work is a POS, so I tend to NOT make comments about color when I'm at work.

OK, I looked at it and found that the skin tones were, in fact, a little too magenta. I toned that down a touch and got this (before/after).

If you want me to take this image down, let me know.

I'd love to hear your take more on the color! It seems a little off, but then again, I had shots in so many different locations that it could just be that they have different slight casts to them! Oh, and it's not too much magenta for sure. I too most of it out. ! Taht's been an issue I've had lately and thought it might be magenta so I pulled it WAAAY back.

photogmomma · September 4, 2007

Scott_Quier wrote:

I'll take a look at it this afternoon when I can pop it into PS and look at the numbers. The monitor I have at work is a POS, so I tend to NOT make comments about color when I'm at work.

OK, I looked at it and found that the skin tones were, in fact, a little too magenta. I toned that down a touch and got this (before/after).

If you want me to take this image down, let me know.

I dont' mind at all!

!

I'm not liking it that much, though. To me, the skin tones are much more yellow than they are in real life. Maybe I'll play a bit more - I'm thinking it somewhere in between!

Thanks for playing around - I really appreciate it! If I play with it today (unlikely), I'll post for feedback on it. (More likely, it'll be when they order.)

Thanks again!

Scott_Quier · September 4, 2007

photogmomma wrote:

I dont' mind at all! !

I'm not liking it that much, though. To me, the skin tones are much more yellow than they are in real life. Maybe I'll play a bit more - I'm thinking it somewhere in between!

Thanks for playing around - I really appreciate it! If I play with it today (unlikely), I'll post for feedback on it. (More likely, it'll be when they order.)

Thanks again!

Not knowing what he looks like in real-life, it's kinda hard to do the job right. I just worked by the numbers and modified it (throttled the yellow back from there).

photogmomma · September 4, 2007

Scott_Quier wrote:

Not knowing what he looks like in real-life, it's kinda hard to do the job right. I just worked by the numbers and modified it (throttled the yellow back from there).

Cool! That definitely gives me a MUCH better starting place. I was getting results playing around that just got worse from what you see that I did - not quite as good as you did.

But I think their skin tones are between yours and mine.

Thanks a TON for helping me! Your edit shows how much magenta was still left!

Scott_Quier · September 4, 2007

This may be a stupid question, but have you read the Pleasing Skin Tones tutorial? Here's the link.

photogmomma · September 4, 2007

Scott_Quier wrote:

This may be a stupid question, but have you read the Pleasing Skin Tones tutorial? Here's the link.

I have, but I dont' really like to pull things into PS unless I HAVE to. I'd rather do it all in Lightroom if at all possible.... That just adds hours to my pre-sales editing. I'll do that if I need to edit for a sale, but would rather not if it's not necessary.

! (Call me the lazy photographer!)

Thanks, though!