As many of you may know we have a new addition to our family. So it only seems appropriate that we discuss how to take great baby pictures. There are many things to consider when composing a baby portrait. Here are a few.
Use the right lens
Lenses are super important to all aspects of photography. This can be especially true when capturing portraits of babies (or any person for that matter). Wide angle lenses tend to distort features rendering a child’s nose abnormally large while shrinking the ears as well. Most portrait photographers are going to use around 85-100mm focal length in order to preserve a more natural look with proper proportions especially when capturing the face. You can use a wide angle when capturing body parts and get some great effects so practice with both.
Utilize their curiosity
Babies are curious creatures indeed. As they grow in both body and mind the world offers babies an enormous amount of new information with every touch, taste, and smell. Use this to your advantage. Lemons and limes can produce fun sour faces, while feathers will provide giggles and smiles. Shiny, fuzzy, or sticky objects, and everything in between, will help you capture baby pictures full of curious variety.
Light
Low window light can provide some of the most beautiful and natural light on a baby’s face. Go ahead an move that crib over to the window and set your ISO to 200 if there is enough light. You’ll get soft sweet images sure to make the grandparents smile.
5.6
That’s the preferable f-stop you should be aiming for. You can of course go lower, but anything higher than f8 and everything in the background will be competing with your child’s spotlight. We simply can’t have that.
Taking pictures of babies doesn’t have to be hard and you can produce some really beautiful images if you just work on composition, light, and variety. Get high angles and low angles; hands and feet; ears, nose, and mouth; and just have fun with it. Just like any other aspect of photography or art, the more you practice the better you’ll get.
Photograph at top baby6 by jjacioux
Here are some other great baby pictures from our readers (okay, that last one’s mine) -
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Fabulous shots and a very informative article.
Thanks for the tips!