Ages and Stages to Photograph Infants

Sadly enough my son is now old enough that I can't do a lot of the great poses I like to do with brand new babies. The plus? He's smiling at me all the time now and is actually awake once and a while. He'll be two months old in January and he's rapidly approaching those great developmental milestones that are fun to  photograph. I personally think that all infants need professional pictures capturing each phase of their first year and recommend to customers to have portraits at 1 week, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and 1 year. Yearly portraits are also important after that. Here's why:

1. At one week infants still have the "newborn" look, and the ability to sleep through anything. I have great images of babies up to 1 month old in the same style, but overall it's best to capture them before they put on a bunch of weight and/or have a case of baby acne. My son is already up to 13.5 pounds and he was only 8lbs.when he as born. Babies are literally different from day to day.
2. At three months most babies can hold their heads up well while on their stomachs. They also will smiles those great big baby grins we all love. Additionally they are awake more, but still sleep a good portion of the day so it's possible to get both awake and asleep images in one session.
3. Six months is when most babies start sitting up well unaided. These are so cute! Some also crawl and/or roll over. I try to catch these new skills in  the session. Oh, they can also reach their toes! Makes for some cute stuff.
4. Once nine months rolls around many kids are staring to stand up, pull up on things, or even walk for some kids (much to the dismay of their parents!). These make for great full body shots.
5. And of course 1 year. You can't forget that first birthday. Clients of mine that do all 5 sessions I've listed above all receive a free baby album including 20 8x10 photos as a gift.

Right now is a great time to book your child's portrait session and enter to win up to 5 free sessions for 2010. Visit Irene Jones Photography Online for details. And if you live in Everett, Lake Stevens, Marysville, Snohomish or anywhere in the greater Puget Sound region. Check our our coupon in Hometown Values to save $15 off your session fee.

I can't forget, today's image is of Greyson, he was born in early December and is a very fun baby to shoot. Like most babies, he took his time falling asleep but once he did, it was easy to move him around however I wished. For the first shot I took the photo from directly above. The exposure is 1/100 @ F6.3 ISO 200. The key light was my normal background light and the fill is opposite the key with an umbrella for diffusion. Greyson was on an ottoman and I was standing on a chair looking down.

For tomorrow: more of Greyson and discussion on focal length, and quality of light.

Terice's Training Sessions

Although Terice has been working with me for a few years now, most of her experience has been on location. When our studio opened in August a lot of different possibilities became available to her and I both. Since that time we've intermittently done training sessions to help her master some of the basics and become more comfortable with this working environment. Today we photographed a very nice family of four as part of this training. I think she's doing quite well and here's a photo to prove it.

Our subject is 3 month old Emmit. Isn't he darling? The image is very simple to do really. The baby is laying on his stomach being propped up by a Boppy pillow covered in a white fuzzy blanket. The background is  the same blanket. I'm holding the blanket up behind him. The single light source provides a pretty broad lighting pattern while keeping some shadows for dimension and that all important catch light in his eyes.

As I mentioned yesterday, we used a remote to release the shutter and tripod so as to focus on getting the little guy to smile. His mother was also a great help in getting his attention. The pose is one of my favorite parts. Three month old babies are normally very good at holding their heads up in this position, but keep in mind they tire easy! Another good position for babies this age is on their side. Prop up the baby on the back and side so he's "lounging". Also keep the parent close at all times ready to jump in if the baby begins to slide or needs any help. The last thing any photographer needs is an injured child! I always keep my infant subjects as close to the ground as possible since the idea of a baby falling off a posing table scares me to death.

For this shot Terice was laying on her stomach to be at the baby's level and the tripod was extended to it's smallest height of 24 inches. Having the right equipment, and a little flexibility can really pay off!

Exposure: 1/200 @ f11 ISO 200

Why reshooting isn't a bad thing.

My husband told me a story yesterday about a co-worker of his who's relative heard about this blog and has a lot of love for photography. Apparently he's now following my blog like a religion and trying to do some of the techniques I've written about. I'm completely flattered and shrinking under the mounting pressure. I can't spell for my life and my grammar is terrible. To all my unseen minions I hope none of you can read past an eight grade level and my slaughtering of the English language goes unnoticed. Seriously though, a big thanks to anyone taking the time to read my self-aggrandizing propaganda that some might confuse with a photography guide.

Now please forgive me as I post more photos of my son. He's a month and two days old now and I can't help but think he's getting cuter every day. He started smiling at me (but only when the camera is put away of course) and I can't wait to catch a big fat smile and post it all over the internet. The first shot shown was done at my studio the other night. This is as close to a smile as he would give. Just watch this child will be my "serious one" and I'll end up with thousands of images of his first year, all of which lack facial expression.

The next image is my re-shoot of the Christmas card photos. This is more of what I was originally thinking when I designed the shot in my head. Sometimes it takes several re-shoots before I get an image just right and honestly I think it's a good thing to revisit an idea until you've perfected it. For me making an image is often like a chemistry experiment; that is, you need to apply the scientific method. Let's compare the two:

1. First you must ask a question (or in the photographer's case, be given an assignment).
2. Do research (consider the techniques and equipment the shot might require).
3. Construct a hypothesis (location scout, draw diagrams and form a shot/pose list).
4. Test with an experiment (shoot like there is no tomorrow)!
5. Analysis and conclusion (Lightroom and Photoshop).
6. Decide if hypothesis is true or false. Go back to step 3 if false (re-shoot.)
7. Report results (blog about your image.)

I'm still not perfectly happy with this shot. I may shoot again until it's exactly what I see in my mind. I am thinking of using a wider angle and bring Alex a lot closer to the camera to make him larger in the frame so more of the Christmas tree is visible. I also want a more pleasant look on his face. Still haven't decided if I should put him back in the box. I know that the white wrapping paper, though a nice idea, didn't look as good as I had hoped.  Plus I need to do this shot before he's old enough to talk back.

If I decide to do this shot again I'll post results. Until then I have plans to discuss studio lighting for the next few days. There is a lot of tutorials about shootings on a white background floating around the world wide web. I'm going to add my own say on the matter as well as how to shoot on black backgrounds.

The Top 5 Reasons to Have Portraits by Irene Jones Photography this Season

Today Alex is 11 days old and I wanted to fill this blog post with nothing but photos of him and our family to show what an average session looks like. Now that I have a few family photos I like, I'm going to let by baby vacation for a few weeks before he has to come back to work on his 1 month birthday. By then his newborn cuteness will have changed into a pudgy Gerber baby motif and more photos will be required. (Whoever says that that parents only photograph the first child and forget about the rest didn't know any professional photographers/mothers.)  If you can't get enough of this little guy please visit my Facebook page for Irene Jones Photography and become a fan. New photos of him are available there. So while Alex is doing his best to fill his days with long naps, meals every three hours, and persistent diaper changes, it's your turn. Now is a great time for holiday portraits and Christmas cards. If you are on the fence about having professional photos this season let me help change your mind.

1. Family portraits. Lots of us, myself included, only get around to taking a family portrait on a yearly basis. Yet far more people out there only get around to this important tradition when someone is born, married, or dies. I consider this a personal tragedy. My approach to family portraits is a mix of the traditional and more modern. I know it's important to the average person to have the shot where everyone is smiling at the camera, but it's always fun to include images that show more then faces, but say something about your family. For our family photo I wanted to highlight our newest addition and so our portraits focused around him. The photo above was actually the first time that the kids wanted to hold Alex. Up till now Tyler wanted Alex to hold his finger but Audrey was completely uninterested in the whole idea of touching him. I'm glad I was able to capture a special moment like this. I've also included one of everyone smiling just because I never noticed until now that my daughter and husband have the same smile. Portraits are good at helping us see things like these little similarities.

2. Flexible sessions. Many portrait studios only allow for a few images per session and discourage combining different groupings into one session. They want to maximize the number of sitting fees where in contrast my goal is to maximize the number of great images provided. That's why I don't limit the number of poses, groupings, locations, or clothes changes in any session. I even allow space between each session just in case we go over, that way no one feels rushed when the next session arrives. Ultimately, I feel customer service is equally important as creating beautiful images and I don't hesitate to go out of my way for my clients.

3. Only tasteful props are used in our portraits. If a prop doesn't add to the image, i.e. help tell a story, we don't use it. The connection between the subject and the prop should be obvious. My studio doesn't stock fake daisies or turn of the century costumes. That's not what I do. However we do have a range of other props that fit a variety of different interests. If you have something specific in mind, please ask when you call to schedule your session and if I don't have it, I'll do what I can to find it for you.

Don't forget that even though the weather outside might be gruesome, location sessions are still great this time of year. My studio equipment is fully portable and can be brought to just about anywhere. By photographing on location (your home, a special place you like to go, even a fancy hotel) another dimention is added to the image that otherwise wouldn't have existed in the studio. Can't think of a location? I can so please don't hesitate to ask for suggestions.

4. Groups of all sizes and ages welcome. Have you ever photographed 10 kids under the age of 5? I have several times. What about groups of 25? My studio can handle both and I've had plenty of experience with every possible combination you can imagine.

5. A better value. When you book with me you're getting more then my time, you take part in my never ending pursuit of doing things better. I want each client to walk away with images they love and want to share. Each photo should tell a story and hold personal meaning; something you can't put a price tag on.

To book your session please visit Irene Jones Photography Online for pricing information, portfolios, and directions to our studio. Please note that all sessions are by appointment only. To schedule your portrait session please call 425.367.4781.

I hope you've enjoyed my collection of family portraits! Tomorrow's blog post switches gears entirely as we discuss shooting and "stitching" panoramas in Photoshop CS4.

One more thing: Here is a video about how I set up the shot of Alex hitting the books.

Photographing Infants: The Trick is.....

For the past few days I've focused this blog on photographing infants and today's final installment will provide you with some tips for a smooth photo session. Recently a friend of mine tired to photograph a newborn for another friend. Later when we were talking about her experience she said with some surprise, "Infants are hard to shoot!" She's right! Photo shoots have to be tailored to the exact needs of the infant and every concession must be made to make them comfortable if you wish to get the images you want. Here are a few helpful tips:

• Make the baby happy. Where ever you're shooting should be some place warm, especially if your model has no clothes on. This will help keep your baby asleep as you move them around over and over. And when I say warm I really mean hot. If you're not sweating it's probably too cold.
  
• Think about context and choose props accordingly. Babies in baskets is very classic look that is reminiscent of nursery rhymes and biblical references alike, but feel free to try other props, pillows, football helmets, gift boxes, etc.  Also think about texture and color. Choose blankets that enhance the mood of your shoot or other props that even juxtapose the soft look of an infant. This could be anything that isn't harmful to the little one. Also stability is a major factor, don't try to balance a newborn on a beach ball or anything weird. Use your head. Parents can make great props too. Close ups of parents arms, face, feet, anything really can show scale as well as convey belonging.
• Shoot newborns ASAP! Within the first 1-2 weeks babies still have some very obvious signs of their age. These include, curled limbs, loose skin, fuzz (everywhere!), and a since they lack a lot of muscle control, you can easily pose them as you wish. After about two weeks they become more and more alert, their limbs began to become stronger and straighten, they are now gaining weight to fill out their baggie skin, and the newborn fuzz is being shed. Plus they also may experience baby acne in a greater degree and dry skin as they grow and change. When exactly your child is photographed is up to you. I prefer within the first week if at all possible.
• Be prepared for anything. It might be assumed that if you are photographing someone sound asleep that it shouldn't be all that time consuming. This is a big mistake. Often infant portrait sessions are my longest and at least one hour should be set aside but whenever possible up to three hours may be necessary if a variety of shots are to be captured. This allows for the baby to eat on demand, have the accompanying diaper changes and be soothed back to sleep when fussing.
• Finally, leave expectations at the door. New parents are often not aware that smiling for the camera is not a skill possessed by newborns. I have on occasion caught a muscle reflex on an infant's face that can be called a smile but the chance of this happening is so slim that to hope for it would be setting yourself up for failure. Save the smiling photos for another shoot, don't worry there is plenty of opportunity in the future.Additionally don't expect wide open eyes. Having a newborn I know how exciting it is when they come out of their coma-like state and actually look at you, but for photos I feel it's best to show them acting natural. 

For anyone that wants to know the above photo was taken with my Lensbaby lens. The lighting was window light from the right and a large reflector for fill on the left. ISO 500 was used to get the exposure I wanted which turned out to be 1/40 at F8. I've found with the Lensbaby I tend to get better images when I use smaller apertures. I wanted to blow out most of the highlights especially in the blurry edges. There was also another white fill card placed behind Alex to give the illusion of a plain white background.

I would love to hear your stories or experiences photographing infants. Please post your comments here!

Tomorrow is our final installment with baby photos of Alex in the studio.

Photographing Infants: Why Black and White is Back

Today I want to get a little more technical and talk about color vs. black and white. For my generation black and white is very popular. We ( the 20 and 30 somethings out there) associate it with editorial or candid photography and consider it timeless.  My parents age group (baby boomers) often find black and white boring. The main difference stems from the fact that color photography did not become widely used until the late 1950's and into the '60's. Color films ( such as Kodak's Kodachrome) had been available to the public since 1935 but was considerably more expensive and difficult to process compared to black and white.  As color movies became more popular in theaters and color televisions became fixtures in homes across America, consumers turned from "traditional" black and white films to the vibrant colors of slide film. With this transition a new form of torture was invented; the slide show. Countless girlfriends and neighbors have been bored to tears during one of these events. 2009 was the year in which Kodachrome was retired by Kodak marking the end of an era. No worries though, thanks to social networking and the advent of digital photography badly exposed or blurry/unrecognizable images are everywhere and multiplying at an exponential rate. Now would probably be a good place to mention my Facebook page! Please become a fan. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Shameless self promoting aside, let's see some photos shall we? In case you haven't already guessed. These are my baby's feet. This image above was shot at 1/60 @F2.8 with my 50mm lens.
For comparison sake, the same image is shown in color on the right. Notice the difference in contrast between the black and white version and the color version. Personally I like my color images with less contrast and I avoid over saturation since I also want my colors to look natural.
 Black and white is a different story though, additional contrast is necessary to help separate the shades of gray from one another. It also changes the mood of an image. The black and white version emphasizes texture.  By removing the distraction of color the viewer looks only at the light and shadows. This most basic photographic style hits directly to the heart of what photography is all about: the interplay of light and dark. This is also why it lends itself so nicely to infant portraits. Infant portraits most frequently seek to minimize the amount of information in an image and instead focus your attention on the tiny features of newborns.
Since most of us aren't shooting black and white film let's talk about how to make the best possible black and white image from a digital file.  Photoshop provides several ways to convert an image to black and white, a few of which I'll show you here. Lightroom also does a very nice job with black and white. Let's start with Photoshop. The most basic ways to change a color image to black and white in Photoshop is either the Desaturate or convert to Grayscale  Here are the results.

The Desaturate option converts colors exactly as they are where the grayscale tries to estimate what they should be. Both are good efforts but not exactly right. With either method, all of the colors are converted to a shade of gray. Reds and greens often become the same when converting between color and black and white. The image then looses contrast and lacks a diversity in the tonal range. Or as my college professors used to say it looks "flat" or "muddy". I always wanted to ask if those were technical terms...  When the tonal range has been dramatically reduced like this doesn't the image seem less interesting since the details are not as clearly visible? To fix this the next step needs to be introducing more contrast to increase the tonal range. This can also be done a number of varying ways. Adjusting the Brightness/contrast is the most basic but it gives you the least amount of control.

Select Image>Adjustment>Brightness/Contrast to get the menu shown above. I increased the contrast 100 percent (I would have done more if possible) and decreased the brightness slightly (shown as a negative number). Here is the resulting image.

As you can see much better contrast, details in the highlights and shadows and more dimension in the midtones, but more can be done.

When using the levels adjustments (Image>Adjustment>Levels) you have three sliders, black on the left, midtones in the middle (obviously) and white on the right. By adjusting these sliders (your midpoint moves whenever you adjust either the black or white) together or separately you can increase contrast. Since the levels adjustment is based on the histogram of the image you can see visibly where the tones lie and change the image accordingly.  One step better then using the levels is the Curves adjustments. Like the levels adjustments, curves are based upon the histogram. The main difference is when editing with the curves is control. You can also plot points along the histogram where you would like to retain specific values and expand or decrease the amount of highlights and shadows individually.. In the next screen shot you'll notice three lines in the curves window that overlap the histogram. The blue line is the suggested balance, the gray is the original tonal range and the black in my adjustments.

Better then converting to grayscale or desaturating,  Black and White adjustment combines the steps we've been talking about while providing the most versatility. Select Image>Adjustment>Black and White.

You'll notice that the colors are represented by percentages and that reds and greens are displaying at the same value as well as blues and yellows. These percentages reflect the shade of gray. By adjusting the percentages of each of these colors the tonal range expands and contrast increases.

The adjusted values are:
reds: 10%
Yellows: 49%
Greens: 31%
Cyans: 79%
Blues: 73%
Magentas: 45%
Notice how the version of our feet photo in the screen shot looks rich and interesting. The details are more pronounced and all of the shades of gray separate creating a more visually dynamic image.

For Lightroom the process is similar to the black and white adjustment in Photoshop, the terminology is the only difference. Select your image in the develop module and then use the grayscale button to convert into grayscale. You can then adjust your highlights with the recovery slider and the shadows with the fill light and/or blacks sliders. Contrast is pretty self explanatory. By adjusting each of these separately you can gain the most control over the tonal range of the image. Best part is that with Lightroom you can make these adjustments on multiple images.

The first black and white version of this image was edited with Lightroom. Just for fun, here's a few more photos of Alex also edited in Lightroom by applying the same settings as the baby feet photo..

Though I have talked a great deal about the benefits of black and white over color I don't want to diminish color photography. As with all styles, each has a place and purpose. When it comes to infant photography I personally prefer the black and white because of it's simplicity. Details, texture, and light are emphasized. Room is provided for story telling. It only seems appropriate that the simplest members of the human family are documented in a simplified format. Let me know what you think. I'd love to read your comments!

Next up tips for making an infant portrait shoot more successful.