Wouldn’t it be great to shoot amazing-looking photos of your baby right at home with whatever camera you have with you? These baby photography tips are just what you need.
Hiring a professional baby photographer to take pictures of your baby at regular intervals can be quite expensive. If you want to record those moments from the first 3 weeks, until the baby is about a couple of months old, and then continue doing that until they’re able to walk by employing the services of a professional photographer, it can be very expensive.
I am not suggesting that you don’t employ a professional photographer. But it’s not affordable beyond one or two sessions.
But then how do you capture those innumerable moments when you don’t have a professional photographer around?
With a little bit of practice and application of the baby photography tips that I am going to share with you here, you can do an amazing job of capturing stunning baby photos right at home.
Let’s get right to it:
Baby photography tips we’re going to learn:
Shoot With Natural Light
As an amateur photographer, you’re likely to use natural light more than artificial light. With natural light, you don’t have to worry about lighting ratios, syncing, and those sorts of things. Artificial light can be a bit too intimidating for someone just getting started. And if you’re shooting with a phone, syncing them could be an issue. Natural light is a whole lot more convenient.
Natural light has a warm quality when you use the morning and late afternoon light (more on this in the next segment), and this tends to improve the quality of your images.
Choose the Best Light
Even the best baby photography tips will not be useful unless you choose the best light to shoot in.
The best light to shoot in is the early morning and late afternoon. As I have mentioned above, during these times of the day, the light is warm and it’s also very flattering. No wonder a majority of natural light photographers would wait to shoot at these two times of the day.
How do you use natural light in your photos? A large window letting in an abundant amount of light is a great place to set up your shot.
You could also set up outdoors depending on the weather. That would give you a bit more room to play around and a greener background that you can incorporate into your photos.
Choose the Best Time to Shoot
There are two major variables in any baby photography session – the best light to shoot in and the best time to shoot. Your job is to match those two windows of opportunity together.
I have already discussed the first variable; now let’s look at the second one.
As a parent, you have an advantage here over a professional baby photographer. You know the times of the day when your baby is in its best mood and can schedule a photo session around those “happy hours.”
For instance, when my daughter was born, she would sleep throughout the day and stay active only after sundown! That went on for weeks before she was out of that “jet lag phase.”
It made it impossible to shoot a decent photo of her in natural light. So, we had to wait for several weeks before she got tuned to the “regular” sleep pattern and allowed us to shoot some images with natural light.
Your baby might be in his or her best mood after a morning nap. Or he or she could be the happiest after feeding time. As a parent, you’re in the best position to make that judgment call and schedule a photo session.
Play Around With a Shallow Depth of Field
Don’t forget to use the shallow depth of field effect in your photos. This is usually referred to as the “Portrait” mode on phones.
If you’re using an interchangeable lens camera, choose a fast wide aperture lens, something like a 50mm f/1.8 or an 85mm f/1.8 to capture that blurry background naturally.
Another thing that you can do is increase the subject-to-camera distance and use a long lens for example a 200mm prime. That will also blur the background.
Go for a High-Key Look
Baby photos look great with a high-key effect. The high-key effect requires a lot of light in the scene. The idea is to eliminate whatever shadows there might be. So, just using natural light may not be enough. You need to be able to bring in some additional lighting sources. Perhaps a reflector could fill in the shadows. If you don’t have a reflector, try using a foam core.
Alternatively, if you are using an interchangeable lens camera, you can use a flash.
Get Down to Their Eye Level
The best shots are usually the ones that are shot from the eye level of the baby. Getting down to their eye level ensures that you capture their perspectives. But this camera angle does something else, and that, for me, is more important – it allows the viewer to connect with the baby at a personal level.
This is the same technique I mentioned when discussing dog photography ideas.
Always focus on the baby’s eye that’s closest to you. If the baby is looking straight at you focusing on any one eye is fine.
If you’re using an interchangeable lens camera then use single-point focusing and the center-weighted metering mode for the most accurate metering.
Learn more about metering modes.
If you’re shooting with a phone, tapping on the baby’s face allows your phone to meter and focus on that point.
Use the Rule of Thirds for Better Compositions
The rule of thirds is a very easy-to-implement guideline in photography composition. Divide the frame into 9 equal rectangles and four intersecting points. Place your subject on one of those points and the composition appears vibily appealing.
Learn more about the Rules of Composition in Photography.
His/Her Favorite Storybook Session
Reading is a great way to interact with your baby. Not only does it help in the process of language skills, but it also helps in identifying objects and pictures. We all know this, but what we tend to overlook is the fact that these sessions can be a wonderful opportunity to take some beautiful images. So, while your partner is reading a book to the baby, you can stand at the side silently clicking pictures.
Bring in the Family Pet
The hardest thing to do as a photographer is to work with kids and pets. The same goes for when you work with babies and pets. It just becomes a bit more challenging. Not impossible, by the way. Just a bit more work and a bit more patience are required from you. But I can guarantee you that you will have increased the cuteness quotient by several times.
Just ensure that the baby is already properly introduced to the family pet and that it’s completely at ease around the presence of the baby.
Use Props
I love using props. They add a fresh twist to any image. I regularly use props for portrait images and they help me add more to an image. With baby photography, you can take things to a different level with the use of props.
Superhero Baby
This is one of my favorite poses. There are plenty of superhero cosplay suits available at online retailers, and all you have to do is find the one that you want your baby to be wearing. Get some matching masks and props, and you’ve got yourself a super setup to shoot some memorable photos.
Waterbaby Look
You don’t have to let your baby float on water for this though. Just arrange some interesting-looking props, some blue sheets, an inflatable swim ring, and a cosplay costume. Make sure that you use the right props and I can guarantee you that the final shot will be amazing without anyone getting wet.
Play With Perspectives
There are a lot of ideas that you can put to use if you want to play with perspectives in your photos. Because babies are small and have cute little feet, toes, and fingers, you can easily use perspectives to capture all that cuteness. Perspective makes the whole thing appear a lot more cute.
Baby Wrapped in Parents’ Hands
This is suitable if you have large hands and can capture that beautiful perspective of your hands wrapping your baby as he/she sleeps soundly. Ideally, this is a pose that would be best captured when both parents lend their hands to the shot and the image is captured by a third set of hands – aka the baby photographer.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t try this on your own. Give the camera to your partner and ask her to shoot the image while you hold the baby in that wrapping pose.
Focus on Tiny Features – Feet, Fingers, and Nose
Just another way to capture interesting perspectives. Try capturing the cute little details such as the baby’s feet, fingers, toes, and nose.
Capture Funny Baby Faces
Now and then your baby is likely to make adorable funny faces. Like when my daughter was about a few months old, she would giggle and wink in response to me doing “now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t.” It was almost predictable. That makes a great photo moment.
Nap Time Shots
Babies look extra cute when they’re sleeping – a great time to shoot some photos. You can get creative because you can play around with props, dress the baby with a cosplay costume, and practically go overboard with ideas that you can implement.
The only rule for photographing a sleeping baby is not to wake him/her up!
Dreamy Backdrops
And while we’re on the topic of photographing sleeping babies, let’s go wild with interesting backdrops. This takes a bit of time and imagination, and there is no easy way to do this. Except if you shoot against a green screen and then replace the background with a background of your choice when editing.
Keep Your Camera on Continuous High Mode
With babies, you’re working with a subject who can give you a pose every second. If you’re not fast enough with your hands, you will miss an awful number of great shots. You must use a camera that can shoot at a continuous high speed, with a bunch of shots every second to capture every fleeting moment.
Capture Sibling Love
If you have an older child, it’s a great idea to bring him/her into the frame for one of the shots. A great way to capture the sibling bond and up the cuteness factor.
Conclusion – Baby Photography Tips
Photographing your baby need not be a difficult and cumbersome process. Keep a camera around your baby at all times, charged and ready to use at a moment’s notice. Shoot a lot of images, you can always make a decision on which ones to keep and the ones to discard. You will soon find out that if you take about two dozen or so images, only one will stand out where everything including lighting, pose, sharpness, etc. will come together. Hopefully, these baby photography tips will help you along the way.
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