Beginner First Attempt at Photographing a Newborn Baby

vtrjames

vtrjames

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490
Name
James
Edit My Images
Yes
Evening all,

My wife gave birth to our baby boy on the second of march this year. Since then I've been working on portraiture and it's something I've really been enjoying although it has tested my patience at times. Below are the select few that I've decided to keep, I was wondering if you could provide some advice on how I can improve in the future. For each photo I've explained what I think the flaws are so any critique from yourselves will be greatly appreciated; all of the below were taken using a Nikon D7200, 40mm Macro and window light.

In the photo below I think the background along with the blown highlight near his lip are distracting.


In the photo below, I'm not entirely sure the blown highlight in the top left corner is distracting or adds something to the image; part of me thinks it adds to the image and creates a 'clean' background. I'm willing to hear other opinions on this.


Aside from the pose (my wife likes it) I actually quite like the photo although I think it maybe a little soft. Any thoughts?


Any help and guidance will be hugely appreciated,
James
 
•

CONGRATULATIONS to both of you!

Your exposure, James, was in the better part of the histogram but
you did not PPed your take the right way, IMO.

First, set DRL… that alone will prove the good exposure, then you
will see what has to be done.

I would be very curious to get hold of a RAW file to work on it! :cool:
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•

CONGRATULATIONS to both of you!

Your exposure, James, was in the better part of the histogram but
you did not PPed your take the right way, IMO.

First, set DRL… that alone will prove the good exposure, then you
will see what has to be done.

I would be very curious to get hold of a RAW file to work on it! :cool:
Click to expand...

Morning Kodiak,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I haven't got the Raw file anymore as I've got into the habit of deleting it after I've created a tiff file when I think I've finished with the processing.

James
 
Evening all,

Here's today's effort...

It was shot with a home made softbox (a cardboard box with a sheet draped over the front). I realise I should have posed his hand again after he moved but as a lesson in flash I'm quite pleased with it.


Any thoughts?

James
 
last image is much better than the last batch.

Editing is not quite there but you can fix it. You really must edit against the histogram such images as your screen and perception will always let you down. It should be almost as simply as exposure +0.75 to +1.0 and blacks -whatever to reach the edge. A quick white balance fix (too yellow / too magenta?) and you are good. Monochrome would work great too.

P.S. Congratulations!
 
Thanks for posting that, it's a great help. Comparing the two I prefer yours and it's easy to see why the image is much lighter and the additional contrast gives it that extra lift.

James
 
Congratulations to you both James, he's a wee cutie. :)

I'm definitely no expert on portraiture, and even more so new-born, but can see a marked improvement from the first few images to that last one. I'm not a big fan of the typical 'posed' new-born shots so imo these are spot on pose wise as they look really natural. Good job all round!! :)
 
Ladystrange said:
Congratulations to you both James, he's a wee cutie. :)

I'm definitely no expert on portraiture, and even more so new-born, but can see a marked improvement from the first few images to that last one. I'm not a big fan of the typical 'posed' new-born shots so imo these are spot on pose wise as they look really natural. Good job all round!! :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Claire; it's something I'm really keen on improving.

James
 
Great second image after the first batch, big improvement! The PP will help you too massively! Not heard of a homemade softbox before, I'd be interested to see what it looks like?(y)
 
Daniel_Paul said:
Great second image after the first batch, big improvement! The PP will help you too massively! Not heard of a homemade softbox before, I'd be interested to see what it looks like?(y)
Click to expand...

Morning Daniel,

Thanks for the kind words.

The homemade softbox was a rather rudimentary affair, just a medium sized cardboard box with a hole cut in the back for a speedlight and the front flaps cut off. I covered the front in a white muslin cloth and that was it.

I've thrown it out now because while it worked for the photo above, the box kept falling off the speedlight.

It's been replaced with a Hahnel 80x80cm softbox which I'm hoping to use again this week when the baby settles down; he was a bit miserable yesterday and wouldn't settle at all.

James
 
Evening all,

Below are further attempts at portraiture but this time taken with an 80x80cm softbox. The placement of the cardboard behind the card is less than ideal but it's something I need to keep on top of similarly in the second image the hand looks a bit awkward but he was wide awake and not very co-operative! I'm still learning my way around GIMP so attempting to clone out the cardboard is a bit of a non-starter at the moment as I keep making a hash of it. I realise the background isn't ideal either but it's the best I can do at the moment unless I invest in an actual backdrop when I have spare change.



Here is the histogram from within Rawtherapee...





Any thoughts on the lighting - especially how it could be improved - would be hugely appreciated.

James

***Edit***

Finally, here is a different crop of number 1...

 
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