Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Photographing a baby - and having fun doing it!

You may remember a blog post from a while back, when my niece came down to our house for me to take pregnancy photos of her.  In that blog post, I said that I was new to pregnancy photos and had to figure out the best angles and poses. Well...once again I was outside my comfort zone taking photos of a 5 week old baby. But, just like before, we just had some fun and tried different things, as you will see in this blog post.

(Canon 1DX, Canon 100mm macro lens, f/4, ISO 640, 1/100 sec)
We started with a white furry piece of material which we put over a stuffed chair. We had Penelope wear a cute little hat and I started shooting some photos. I started with the Canon 1DX and a 100mm macro lens and also used the Canon 24-70mm lens for many of the shots.

(Canon 1DXCanon 100mm macro lens, f/2.8, ISO 1250, 1/125 sec)
With a baby so young, it was hard to position her head. So I just let her wiggle around and took photos when I saw the opportunity. I really love this one with her looking up at me.

(Canon 1DXCanon 100mm macro lens, f/2.8, ISO 320, 1/80 sec)
As you know, I like trying to find good photos taken from a different perspective. With that in mind, I moved my position and focused on her hand, which was up by her ear. I love the way that a simple image like this can say so much.

(Canon 1DXCanon 24-70 f/2.8 II lens, f/4, ISO 640, 1/100 sec)
It was just before Halloween and we had a bunch of pumpkins laying around the house. Being a goof ball, and just messing around, I grabbed a couple of the smaller pumpkins and turned Penelope into "Princess Leia".

(Canon 1DXCanon 100mm macro lens, f/2.8, ISO 640, 1/125 sec)
We then switched the white material for this checkered material and added some color to the photos.

(Canon 1DXCanon 100mm macro lens, f/2.8, ISO 640, 1/160 sec)
Most of the time, I am working to maintain perfect focus on her eyes, but for this photo, I shot at a wide aperture and focused on her hands, lettering her face become part of the background.

(Canon 1DXCanon 24-70 f/2.8 II lens, f/2.8, ISO 320, 1/640 sec)
And for a couple of minutes, Penelope decided to take a nap. I guess my photography lulls people to sleep. :)

(Canon 1DXCanon 24-70 f/2.8 II lens at 45mm, f/4.5, ISO 320, 1/125 sec)
My wife is a little strange and has two mailboxes in our backyard, to keep her favorite tools. We thought it would be funny to put the baby girl in the mailbox so that her mom could have a photo announcing "a new baby has been delivered".

(Canon 1DXCanon 24-70 f/2.8 II lens at 45mm, f/4.5, ISO 320, 1/125 sec)
And here is a crop of the same image. I don't know about you, but this makes me laugh.

(Canon 1DXCanon 24-70 f/2.8 II lens at 39mm, f/4.5, ISO 320, 1/125 sec)
After some good laughs, we asked mom to step into the shot to get this.

(Canon 1DXCanon 24-70 f/2.8 II lens at 57mm, f/5.6, ISO 320, 1/125 sec)
My wife found this old red wagon at a garage sale and thought that it would be a fun prop. Running out of ideas, we decided to put Penelope into the wagon, surrounded by our pumpkins and fall leaves. We actually didn't have good enough leaves, so I sent my daughter 4 blocks away to collect some from a very colorful tree. This photo shoot was truly a family affair. (Photographer's note: My wife was holding the little girl in this position, and I removed her hand, arm and shoe using Photoshop.)

(Canon 1DXCanon 24-70 f/2.8 II lens at 41mm, f/4.5, ISO 320, 1/200 sec)
And for this final photo, we just laid Penelope down nice and easy and I quickly shot this. She is so darned cute!

ONE MORE THING...If you have not yet entered the "Jeff' Favorite Things" contest, make sure you do so HERE. It is your chance to win more than $11,000 worth of the best photo gear from my sponsors!

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

For someone who doesn't take baby photos, it sure looks like it's your specialty. Great job! And congratulations to your niece and her husband.

Maggie said...

Wow ... ultra cute ... would never guess this is not your forte :0