Beginner Milk baths

[stardesigns]

Hello, again [emoji112]
I'm sure you will all be bored of me soon, but I'm sure you can see how eager I am to learn!
Anyways, I've been using a few posts from pinterest searches as inspiration for my next shot at pictures. I take a lot of outdoorsy pictures with my eldest (2 year old) however I don't have many shots of my youngest (2 months) other than cutesy spare the moment on my phone. I think it's because I find my eldest easier to distract and work with, anywho..

I thought I would try a milk bath shoot as I think for maternal and young babies (under 6 months) these look beautiful.

So, today we gave it ago - and went down like a led balloon. The set up I felt was adequate, however my daughter was not amused.

So I'm just looking for some hits and tips to make this a more enjoyable and relaxing experience - I had the water at Bath temperature, I feel next time I should use the main bath rather than a prop, but in long term I would like to offer these sorts of photos to people, and my main bath isn't always going to be suitable or convenient [emoji85]

 

[gad-westy]

I don't have all that much useful advice on this subject as it's not something I've evert tried but one thing that's obvious straight away is that the images are both quite underexposed. The milk looks a merky grey colour. I'm assuming that you just metered for the overall scene as normal but all that white milk has fooled the camera into thinking its looking at a very bright scene and so it underexposes. You could dial in some positive exposure compensation or more likely, since your lighting is going to be pretty constant, just dial in some manual settings that get the whites, white without clipping them. You could check the histogram to be sure.

 

[stardesigns]

I tweaked the exposure loads with this shot, unfortunately it's fairly pants weather we I am at the moment so natural light isn't enough so I had to position a light in a way where it wasn't reflecting in the water, but also provided enough light so you could take the picture. I think this is more of a shot for natural light though.

 

[Alastair]

I don't think you've got the water mix right, it's a little grey - erring towards weak wallpaper paste rather than milk.

But if the problem is that you're "looking for some hits and tips to make this a more enjoyable and relaxing experience" then it's not about the photography as much as it's about people-skills. Baby-wrangling is a skill

I think this is more of a shot for natural light though

All photography is about having the right light. This style benefits from light that looks natural, but planning professional photography around the vagaries of the weather for an indoors subject is extremely limiting and needs a studio environment built to capture the right natural light which could be limited to a few hours each day and not predictable. Creating natural looking light from artificial sources is reasonably straightforward but it's another skill you'd need to be prepared to learn.

 

[stardesigns]

I don't think you've got the water mix right, it's a little grey - erring towards weak wallpaper paste rather than milk.

But if the problem is that you're "looking for some hits and tips to make this a more enjoyable and relaxing experience" then it's not about the photography as much as it's about people-skills. Baby-wrangling is a skill


All photography is about having the right light. This style benefits from light that looks natural, but planning professional photography around the vagaries of the weather for an indoors subject is extremely limiting and needs a studio environment built to capture the right natural light which could be limited to a few hours each day and not predictable. Creating natural looking light from artificial sources is reasonably straightforward but it's another skill you'd need to be prepared to learn.

I found it really difficult to find how much was "enough" milk, I think it would have benefited from some more though, I agree. I think as it was my first attempt I was a little dubious of adding too much and it looking poor, however these photos don't do the look I was going for any justice, I just didn't want to completely waste 1 liter if milk and fresh flowers, lol. I didn't want the baby to look fully submerged, I wanted there so be a slight outlined shadow.. I'm struggling to explain so will link to picture that was the aim.
I'm reading up loads in regards to lighting at the moment, this was my first attempt with actual lights, where I used just the white umbrella as I felt a reflector would have been too much?
http://pin.it/nyPNaEx

 

[Alastair]

I found it really difficult to find how much was "enough" milk

All the "recipes" I've seen include milk powder as well (or instead of) as milk.

About the examples you're trying to emulate:

• I'm 90% certain the mother is in the bath and the child is resting over white muslin on her outstretched legs. The presence of the mother keep the child reassured whilst the photographer looms overhead. The white muslin helps bounce some light up from under the water and helps with the whiteness.
• If you "read the eyes" you can see the lighting used - it's reflected in the catch lights.