Baby Photography: It's Not Just For Professionals

By Adriana Noton

Photography is a good way to remember all the different stages in your life. When your children go to one grade to the next, when you marry the one you love, buy a new house, or just to give a viewpoint of the everyday instances throughout the year. The important moments, or the ones that just invoke mild interest, a picture is a landmark and one of the most important of those landmarks is the birth of a child.

Here are a few tips to help you express the most important landmarks in someone's life. A new baby. Babies are some of the most popular subjects in terms of picture taking but because of their very nature, they require a great deal of patience and skill in order to do your baby photography justice. For instance, a mistake that you see a lot in baby photos is the use of the flash when a picture is taken.

Try to avoid the flash at all costs since it causes red eye. Natural light is best and it's possible to get it by using what light is available from open windows, or by taking your subject outside. If red eyes can't be avoided, most cameras have a red eye reduction function on them. If your camera doesn't have one, or it doesn't work, there's software online that you can download for free that provide imaging tools to fix the problem.

The next issue about baby photography I want to address is blurring. Babies are hard to control and irritable when they aren't being hyper. If they decide that they don't want their picture taken then they won't be holding still for it. This is the reason why a high iso speed is so important. Combined with a big aperture you can freeze moments that would have otherwise been blurred beyond recognition.

The next point is what should be the most obvious. The background is something that should be kept simple. Your baby is the main focus in the picture and therefore shouldn't be overshadowed by a loud, obnoxious background. You can avoid the background noise of chairs, toys on the floor, or other children in the background by zooming in or moving closer since the surroundings are very seldom as important as the child.

That means that backgrounds with too many things going on can overshadow your subject. To avoid that you can either zoom in or move closer to your baby. You can also keep them dressed in light, solid-colored clothes because patterns and 'heavy' colors can distort the baby's face and eyes. Too much color, whether on your baby or off is bad for the overall image and you should work to avoid it.

Your main focus is your baby and they are often interesting enough on their own that if you need props or extra additions, they can be simple and few. When taking shots, unless you want the distorted effect, don't use a wide angled lens. There are other ways to make an impact on a photo other than distortion and bright colors however. The simplest things are often the most effective.

Another interesting thing hat can be done is taking a photo of the baby while they are doing one of the many strange poses or facial expressions that they are famous for. Or bring in the use of mirrors and blurred backgrounds, both of which work very well in highlighting a baby's possible worldview. - 29959

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