Baby Photography – the first year

Baby Photography, the first year.

I photograph newborn babies up to five weeks and then babies from four months. These shoots are best when babies can lie on their tummies and hold their head up unaided.  At 6 to 8 months, babies are learning to sit unaided and this is a great time for photo shoots. Babies are interacting with the world and are much more expressive. I love capturing all the stages in the first year, but this is normally my favourite. At a year, little ones are normally starting to take first steps, these shoots can be challenging as understandably they don’t want to stay still! Hence, why there are cake smashes and bubble shoots, as they hold the little ones attention (for a short while!) Capturing these milestones are important as they go by so quickly.

My niece is almost 3. There was a folio frame containing photographs of Maddie at 4 months, 6 months and a year in her living room. It was taken down recently and apparently my niece kept asking where baby Maddie had gone. It is now back in the living room. It’s not only important for parents as a reminder of these milestones, but its important for the little ones too.

 

advert 2017

Digital Backdrops, on Etsy.

Digital Backdrops – Link to my etsy shop –  https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/AuraDigitalBackdrops?ref=hdr_shop_menu

I’ve added more digital backdrops to my Etsy shop. One of my clients wanted a Christmas image with fairy lights. A simple request, but it took me a little while to get right. My studio lights are brighter than the fairy lights and so I couldn’t get the lights to show on camera. The image was so bright, so you couldn’t see the fairy lights at all. I realised, after some thinking that I needed to use my continuous light and a reflector. It worked well. I just had to make sure I was back as far as I could go, zoomed in, on my widest aperture and voila I could see the fairy lights! I’ve had fun thinking of ideas and creating backdrops with the fairy lights. I have also already used the fairy lights backdrop (from the bottom image) as a background on some of my sledge shots.

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Christmas Present digital Backdrop
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Christmas Present digital backdrop.

Christmas Present Backdrop – With baby composited into the shot. The backdrop for sale on etsy, has an overlay (the front of the box) so that you can correctly position baby. The backdrops are ready to buy as an instant download through my etsy shop.

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Digital Backdrop. Fairy lights with red baubles.

6 month old Baby Photo Shoot

This 6 month old baby photo shoot with Ava, was a joy to do. Ava’s big sister 3 year old Amy joined in too and we got lovely photos of the both of them. 6 months is such a lovely age, babies are very expressive and Ava was so smiley! She even woke up smiling. I must have done close to 500 baby shoots and you don’t see that very often. Ava was just starting to sit, although she was a bit wobbly. So Ava’s Mum used her hand to prop her up a few times. I was then able to photoshop Helen’s hand out of the picture. We did images on Ava’s back and tummy and also in a prop. Ava didn’t like staying on her back for long, so I had to be quick! I’ve been told babies can concentrate for a minute for every month, so at 6 months babies can concentrate for 6 minutes. There are lots of breaks and I’ve got quite proficient at reading baby cues. So I generally know when they’ve had enough. The shoot normally lasts an hour (with lots of breaks) and I can get quite a few different pictures in that time.

I normally find 3 year olds the most difficult to photograph. They are at an age where they are independent and it’s difficult to get them to be in a picture if they don’t want to do it. They have also found their freedom, so understandably don’t want to sit still. But Amy was great, such a lovely big sister and we were able to achieve quite a lot. This was a lovely 6 month old baby photo shoot, it is usually one of my favourites and this shoot was no exception!

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So smiley! and just adorable. 6 month old babies like grabbing their hands at this stage and I love being able to capture this.



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Both Ava and Amy’s first teddies are in this picture. I love it when parents bring items that are sentimental and we are able to incorporate them in the shoot.

 

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