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Hello Sweet Shoppers! First, I apologize for the lateness of this post. For once I had my photos all prepared and ready to go, and then when I got into work today? My internet access was all messed up and I couldn’t get to the blog or to flickr! So without further ado, today I want to talk about photography, and more specifically newborn photography.

Now, I’m not a professional photography. I don’t have a fancy full frame camera with 843902 megapixels, or a studio, or even a background set up. I *do* have an external flash (or a speedlite), but I don’t really know what I’m doing with it, if I’m being honest. I just turn it on, point it at the ceiling, and hope for the best. 🙂 All that is to say, what I’m about to show you? ANYONE can do. Anyone anyone anyone, even if all you’ve got is a window and a point and shoot.  On April 29th my girlfriend gave birth to her first born, a lovely little boy that our group of friends has affectionately nick-named “Phil” (I’m not using his real name out of respect for my girlfriends privacy, and yes, she approved me using the following photos for this blog post). I didn’t want to bust up her very first Mother’s Day weekend, so I went up 2 weeks later to take some photos of her new baby. It’s something they might not have had done otherwise, and I really feel that some nice newborn photos are something that every family should get to have to cherish for the rest of their lives. It was an honor to go take these photos for them. Here are 2 photos of little Phil that I want to share.

And here’s a photos of the “set-up”.

See? Nothing spectacular. Nothing expensive. Nothing that you probably don’t have laying around the house right now. That black background is a blanket from my living room. It’s propped up on a broom that happened to be sitting in that corner next to the chest. The basket is also from my home, and I use it to decorate my dining room. You don’t have to have special “baby” baskets or blankets or props to do this for a friend or for your own child. I used what I had and it worked out perfectly! What you don’t see in that photo is the small space heater that I had going. All the “pro” blogs say that if you can’t heat up a whole room (which isn’t always possible if you don’t know where you’re going to be shooting ahead of time) a space heater is the next best thing. Keeping the baby warm will help them sleep, and sleeping babies are the easiest babies to photograph. It’s also great for when you want to take shots without any clothes on the baby. Unfortunately, little Phil doesn’t like to be without clothes so I didn’t get any great photos like that. But that’s ok! You have to work with the baby, and work with what they give you. You can’t force them, all they’ll do is cry! We got some outfit changes out of him, but he wasn’t tired the second time around, as you can see above. But that second shot is so sweet knowing he was looking in the direction of his momma’s voice.

Here’s another shot of Phil, in a different room/set-up. I didn’t take a picture of this set-up, but it’s nothing special. We took his boppy and covered it with a blanket and sat him in it in the middle of the master bed. Tons of windows that room gave me lots of light to work with, and since he was nice and comfortable in his boppy I could walk around and take my time and get some shots.

I also felt that it was important to get shots of Phil with both his parents. All 3 together, as well as each parent individually. His parents weren’t necessarily comfortable in front of the camera, but we all just chatted to make it a little easier, and it’s hard not to be happy with a smiling new baby staring up at you right? I got a wonderful photo from a moment between father and son, that wasn’t planned at all after I snapped the profile shot above. I think one important thing I learned from this is to just. keep. shooting! You never know what you might end up getting. After I caught the shot with Dad, I had Mom do the same thing and it’s a wonderful little storyboard I hope to give them. Each of them looking down at him smiling, with the profile shot of Phil in the middle .

Some other things I learned or wish I had done differently? I wish I had turned that chest more. It worked out fine where it was, but I might have gotten some better light if I turned it so that the blanket in the background wasn’t blocking some of the window. I wish that I had thought to use the white blanket for the background when he was wearing his black outfit. It would’ve provided so much more contrast and interest in the photos. I learned that while a baby with a full tummy *usually* wants to sleep afterwards, sometimes it doesn’t happen. Most of the photos I got were while Phil was awake, so I just made it work. I learned that even with a space heater, not all babies like to have no clothes on, so we don’t have any adorable pictures like that. But that’s ok because that’s true to who the little man is! I learned that I need to have more ideas if I do this again for a friend. Most of my ideas hinged on Phil being asleep and being able to put him in whatever position I wanted. I quickly ran out of ideas when he wasn’t interested in sleeping. On that note, I also learned that while I loved holding him while he was sleeping, I should have taken advantage of that time to get photos. I put my feelings as a friend in front of getting those photos. That’s perfectly ok in this situation because I still got over a dozen great photos to give to my girlfriend, but it’s something to keep in mind in the future.

I absolutely loved doing this, both for my girlfriend and for myself. I got to see her new baby and spend time with her, and I also got to stretch my photography skills and learn some things about myself. I hope you enjoyed these photos and can take a little something away from the lessons that I learned. Have a great holiday weekend this weekend everyone!

~Col