Newborn photography is extremely rewarding, but does take a special blend of patience and skill. No other subject will be so utterly perfect and beautiful; on the other hand no other subject will be so utterly impossible to reason with. If you are just starting out first take a look at my post on choosing the best equipment for taking pictures of your newborn. There are a too many tips for a single blog post, so I’m going to break this up in to two parts. Here are the first couple of tricks and tips to getting great photographs of your newborn.
- Plan to do your first photoshoot within the first one to two weeks after the baby is born. Babies sleep the most during this first two weeks, and are the most pliable during this time. A sleeping one or two week old baby can be posed in a myriad of positions.
- Patience-patience-patience – Don’t expect to spend five minutes and get a card full of great shots. You might get lucky, but you also might have a cranky, active, or otherwise uncooperative baby that keeps moving out of position. Make the most of the time, look for candid shots if he is constantly moving and changing his facial expressions. If he is crying or cranky just wait – no one likes to see a picture of a crying baby.
- Close-ups are a great way to capture the delicate features of the newborn baby. Using a fast aperture, 2.8 or below to limit the depth of field and focus your viewer’s attention on the features you want to highlight. Here is a great example of highlighting the feet using a fast aperture and getting close-up with a 50 mm 1.1:8 D lens on a D80:
- Capture the sparkle in the newborn’s eyes – the glinting light off of brand new eyes really brings life to a picture. Natural light is a great asset and is available any place that you have a window. Simply set the newborn facing a window with good light coming through and capture those sparkling eyes.
Nikkor 50mm f2.8 D at 1/160th
Twinkling Eyes - Nikkor 1.8D at f2.8 1/160 ISO400
Try these first couple of tips see if they improve your shots, and then read on to part two for more tips and tricks to taking the perfect newborn picture.
