The Amateur’s Guide to Photographing Babies – Part 4

Most of the time, most of us amateur photographers have preconceived notions about what makes a “Kodak moment”. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of us share a common aesthetic about these photo-worthy events, which is why there are so many pictures of swollen-faced mommy dressed in a hospital johnnie holding wrinkly new baby while unshaven daddy (or equally exhausted looking NB mommy) leans in to complete the shot. These are the images of toddler on Santa’s lap, or baby’s first Passover, or naked baby in the bathtub, or whatever it is. While these moments may be worth documenting, they don’t necessarily make the best photographs. They might, but they might not. A great moment doesn’t mean a great image.

Which is why you have to be zen about it. You have to be the rock and let the river run over you. (Or whatever. Those of you who know me know that I am about the least zen person ever.) The point is, in addition to going out and looking for that Kodak moment, you need to let the moments come to you. You need to be open to the possibility of a great image in places and times you never expected. This is key for amateur photographers. (And perhaps the best reason to have a camera that you are willing to carry with you, and that you feel comfortable operating.)

Professional photographers have an eye for the shot, and the equipment to create the lighting and effects they want. We amateurs might not always be so lucky, on either front. So we have to constantly be open to good shots, especially in places we might not expect them. In addition to holidays, “firsts”, and pictures with family, here are some other times when you might want to make sure to have the camera available:

• First and foremost, when the light is good. Let’s keep in mind that when it comes to light, you really are looking for quality, not quantity. Bright sunlight can be almost as bad as darkness – even if you can get your baby to look up at you, he will most likely be squinting, and he will have shadows under his eyes. The image will end up being way too contrasty (that’s the technical term. Ahem.), and it won’t look good. You’re looking for soft, natural light – early in the morning, later in the afternoon, or even on a cloudier day. Anything that is less harsh.

• When baby is comfortable and happy, doing something she is fully engaged in. The best shots are the ones that really give us a sense of the baby’s emerging personality, and you’re going to get those pictures when the baby is doing something he enjoys.

• Try different angles.  We often shoot babies from right in front of them, or standing over them.  Try standing to the side, or getting on the floor with your baby.  I’ve taken some great shots while squatting next to the crib and shooting through the bars.

• When baby is eating. Now, this rule is NOT true for adults as no one enjoys a picture of themselves with a mouth full of food. (And even if they do, you probably don’t want to take that picture.) But when babies eat, it’s hilarious. They get covered in it, and that often provides for an interesting and funny picture.

• Which leads me to #4 – any time your baby is doing something that reminds us that she is a baby (or a toddler) and not a big kid or an adult. I’m talking about behaviors that your kiddo does naturally, not contrived situations that we may put our babies in (although those can be hilarious too, especially if they involve blue wigs).  Eating (or attempting to do so) is a great example. Rolling around in the play gym, banging away at Tupperware on the kitchen floor (if you can get enough light), squatting to inspect that leaf we didn’t even notice, crawling across the beach – any of those moments when children remind us that there is much in the world we are missing, and that there is a different perspective to be taken – these are the moments when you want to have your camera out, and take LOTS OF PICTURES. Any time you would take one, take twenty instead. Seriously. Twenty.

• Finally, be open to different kinds of images, not just of smiling babies (although I must confess to being partial to the smiling baby shot myself). The beauty of photography, in my opinion, is in its realism – its ability to take us into another moment, a space outside of ourselves, and give us a glimpse into a different experience. A baby’s experience is not all smiles, and an image of a sad, angry, pensive, or tired baby can be just as interesting and memorable (and probably more so) than another smiling baby shot. Don’t get totally wrapped up in making sure the baby is looking at you, or looking at the camera, or smiling just the right way. Start snapping away, and keep snapping, and then when you are looking through your shots, take time to consider all the images, including the ones you might not normally consider.

Here’s an example.  This is a picture I shot one morning when F was still in her PJ’s, playing in the Pack N Play.  There was nothing particularly special about the moment, except the light coming through the window was just lovely, and I grabbed the camera.  Many of you have seen this shot before on the blog, but it’s one of my favorites, as it really captures the serious, thoughtful look she often gets – my mom noticed it during her first days of life.

There you have it – this amateur’s guide to photographing babes in four parts. My maven husband has offered to write a guest post on choosing a camera, but it might be a few days before that happens. In the meanwhile, what questions do you have? Was this helpful? I’d love to hear from you, and if you have thoughts or tips for photographing babies, please share them. Whatever else you do, get out that camera, charge the battery, and start shooting!

The Amateur’s Guide to Photographing Babies – Part 3

Here’s where we get down to the nitty-gritty of picture taking.  There are a lot of different techniques that go into getting a good shot, but here’s my number one rule:  avoid the flash whenever possible.  (Actually, that’s my number two rule.  My number one rule is TAKE A LOT OF PICTURES.)  Let me explain.  Actually, before I explain, let me give you an example.  (You can click on any of the pictures here to get a larger view.)

The shots on the left were taken with a flash, the ones on the right weren’t.  I hope you will agree that the images on the right are less washed-out, have richer colors, and generally look better.  If you don’t see any difference in the lighting or colors, or if you see a difference but have no preference, stop reading.  Keep taking pictures the way you always have, and you will be happy with them.

So, that’s your goal – minimize your use of flash.  (The exception to this is if you have a totally sweet rig with an external flash.  In that case, flash away.  I’m talking to those of us who have regular old cameras with built-in flashes.)  Normally we use flash in all situations except for bright sunlight, but I took these pictures in our dining room on a gray, rainy day with mediocre interior lighting.  I did this by using the manual settings on camera.  Let me explain:

1.  First, I set the ISO (also known as ASA or film speed for all you old-schoolers) to 800.  Briefly, ISO is a measurement of the film’s sensitivity to light – the higher the number, the more sensitive it is, meaning you can get more of an image in less light.  The down side is that the pictures end up much grainier.  In general, you want to use the lowest ISO possible – in bright sunlight, you want 50 or 100, for example.

Here is an example of a grainy image that’s too dark:

3.  I adjusted the aperture (the size of the hole in the lens that lets the light through) so that the lens was all the way open, allowing in as much light as possible.  I set the camera to aperture priority (usually labeled as A, AV, or AP on the dial), which allowed me to choose how wide open I want the lens, and the camera set the shutter speed (how fast that hole opens up and the closes again) to get the best exposure.  If your camera doesn’t have manual settings, or it does but you don’t want to fiddle with them, look for a “portrait” setting, which often looks like a little face on your dial.  That should do roughly the same thing.
(Speed priority, labeled as S, SV, or SP, allows you to choose the shutter speed you want, and the camera sets the aperture.  P, or program, allows the camera to set both, while still giving you control over the ISO and a few other features.  M is manual, which means that you set both the aperture and shutter speed.)

3b.  In addition to allowing the most light in, opening the aperture all the way up has an added benefit – because of the way depth of field works, your baby’s face should be in focus, while the background will be out of focus.  The face will really “pop” – it’s a great effect.

4.  Now, this might seem all fine and easy – you just open up the aperture all the way, which lets a lot of light in.  No problem, right?  Well, not so much.  The thing is, unless you have a lens that can open all the way up, you will also need to go with a slow shutter speed.  The benefit of the slower shutter speed is that you get more light.  The bummer is that your image may end up being out of focus, depending on how fast your subject is moving.  Here’s an example:

F’s head is in focus, because she wasn’t moving it much, but her hand was moving too fast for my camera.  You can use this to your advantage, because when something is out of focus in this way it often conveys motion.  However, if it’s not the effect you’re going for, or if the whole image is fuzzy, then it’s a bummer.

5.  I have cameras with a great lenses, and in my case, that means that the lens can open way wide, allowing a lot of light in, meaning I can take pictures in low light with no flash.  My husband, the maven, is going to write a guest post about this, but I will tell you which cameras I have.  My point and shoot is a Panasonic DMC-LX3 with a lens that goes down to F2.0 and my SLR is a Canon EOS Rebel XT with a Canon 50 mm F1.8 lens.  (If you read the Digital Photography School post on aperture, you would know that those funny F numbers refer to the aperture, and the low numbers mean that the lenses open waaay up.)  The Canon 50 mm lens is amazing for taking shots in really low-light without a flash, but it’s not a zoom lens, so you have to be ok with that.  I am.

So, that’s that for now.  The next post will be on deciding when it is a good time to photograph your baby.  In the meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this:

The Amateur’s Guide to Photographing Babies – Part 2B

One of my readers recently made the following comment, and I think it is worthy of a detour from my previously scheduled plan for part 3 of photographing babies.  Hence, part 2B.  Here is the comment:

“So your blog about cameras and taking pictures of babies could not be more timely for us! We are in the market for a nice new camera to take pictures of future baby, so my husband has been doing some research. He thought he found a Canon that would be suitable for us, so he ordered it last week (hasn’t arrived yet). Apparently, though, the NYT reviewed it this week and basically said, it has all kinds of cool features, too bad it takes lousy pictures. So now we’re probably going to return that one and look elsewhere. I’m definitely pointing my husband to your blog posts and to the digital camera review website you recommend, so thanks!”

This comment raises an excellent point – I’ve given advice about picking a camera that is within your budget and is something you would be willing to carry around.  I’ve also made the point that it is important that you are able to use the camera, and I’ve warned against getting suckered in by how sexy the camera is.  Finally, I’ve talked about needing a camera that has manual settings so you can take pictures without a flash.  Well, that’s all fine and good, but I haven’t mentioned the quality of the camera.  Let’s take a minute to discuss this.

I don’t have the foggiest idea what makes a camera good.  (Just what you wanted to read, right?)  I can talk to you about what makes it useable, and I can warn you against the barriers that may make it less likely that you are going to take LOTS OF PICTURES.  I can also talk to you about the few features I think you do need (ability to adjust your settings manually is the big one).  But I’m not a techie, and so I can’t talk to you about lens quality or how many pixels* or whatever else may affect the actual quality of the image above and beyond what you can control (like not using a flash, for example).  Since I’m going to leave you hanging in this department, I will recommend that you turn to one of three resources, depending on what you are most comfortable with:

1.  Your friendly neighborhood maven.  As so aptly described by Malcom Gladwell in The Tipping Point, mavens are those folks who know everything about whatever it is they know about.  I happen to be married to a maven, and he happens to be a technology maven, which is extremely handy for when I want to, say, buy a camera.  Let me give you an example.  My father was thinking about buying an HD flat-panel TV.  He called the hubster to talk about it.  Our current TV is neither flat panel nor HD, and we have no intentions of buying such an item.  Yet my husband was able to tell my Dad which one he should buy, why he should buy that one, where he should by it, and how much he should spend.  Off the top of his head.  It’s freakish, to be sure, but it can come in handy at times.  So, if you know a maven, go pick his or her brain.

2.  Your friendly-neighborhood camera store.  Now, I am not talking about a big-box electronics store (of which there are fewer and fewer these days).  I’m talking about your good ol’ Mom-and-Pop, still sells film behind the counter, and has a crapload of cameras for you to look at store.  Find out where that store is, and go talk to them. (Alternately, you could also talk to a friend who is a serious camera buff or a professional photographer, but they may or may not know about a wide range of cameras, including point and shoots.)

3.  If you’re like me, and you feel a strong responsibility to hold down the couch for several hours a day, then you can use the interwebs.  There are two ways to do this.  As I mentioned in my last post, you can go to dpreview, which is generally regarded as the best website for digital camera reviews.  I’ll say it again, it can get a bit techie, but be strong.  You’ll survive.  Or, if you think you have found a camera you might be interested in, google search it.  See what people are saying.  You never know when you might finnd a review in The New York Times, for example.

So, that’s all I have to say about that.  As with everything in life, it’s a balance.  You want a camera that takes quality pictures, but it has to be in your price range, and you have to like it enough to carry it around and actually use it.

In the next post, I’ll talk about why you want to decrease your dependence on the flash, and how to do it.  Future posts will include how to decide when it is actually a good time to photograph your baby.  (Seems obvious, right, but it isn’t always.)

*Note about pixels – more isn’t always better.  We searched a long time before we found a camera with fewer pixels.  The best way I can explain this is to say that more information and detail isn’t always better.  Talk to your maven or camera guy if you really care.

The Amateur’s Guide to Photographing Babies – Part 1

I’ve had a number of people ask about the pictures of Choochie on the blog – they want to know how I took them, and how they can get similar shots of their babies.  I have taken some photography classes, and I worked for the college paper, but those were back in the film and darkroom days.  So, while I know a little something about photography, I’m no digital expert.  Most of this information should be accessible to any budding photographer who wants to get better at taking pictures of babies and children.  Which brings me to my first tip:

1.  Decide you care.
I’m not kidding.  If you are going to get good pictures, you need to decide you care enough to put the time, energy, and money into it.  This is true for anything, but sometimes we forget about it with something that has become as common as taking pictures.  Taking, editing, and posting good pictures takes time and a minimal level of commitment, and you need to decide if you care enough.  There’s no right or wrong here – it’s jut what’s important to you.  I happen to care about photography, so it works for me.  There are many, many things I don’t care about, including, for example, window treatments and home furnishings.  I know that hanging curtains can be a quick and inexpensive project with good results, but the truth is, I just don’t care, which is why we still have the same crappy blinds that were in the house when we moved in and the place looks like it was decorated by college students. (Just to clarify – if you decide you don’t care, that doesn’t mean you should stop taking pictures… it just means you should be happy with the pictures you have, most of which are probably good enough.)

2.  Take a lot of pictures.  And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT.
When I used to work for the school paper, I would take 40-50 pictures of one event, in the hopes of getting one or two good images.  In the age of digital photography, there is no reason not to take many many shots every time you pick up your camera.  When I decide to take some shots of the little one, I take at least 20 each time.  If I know the angle I want, I may take many many shots from the same position, in hopes that I will get at least one when Choochie has her eyes open AND is looking at the camera AND is smiling (or at the very least, not looking psychotic).  If I’m not sure what will look best, I’ll spend time moving around, getting closer and farther away, zooming in and out, fiddling with settings, etc.  Whatever you’re doing, make sure you take a lot of pictures.

3.  Do what it takes to make sure you can, and will, take A LOT of pictures.
The first, and most important step to taking a lot of pictures is to have a camera that you will a) have available and b) use.  I’ll talk a bit about buying a camera later, but for the purposes of this post the most important thing is that you buy a camera that you will carry with you and that you know how to use.  There are many, many good cameras on the market these days, and yes, there are better cameras and there are worse cameras.  However, for most amateurs, even the most basic camera can be good enough, *as long as you know how to use it and keep it with you*.  Take a minute and think about your current camera.  Do you know how to use the most basic settings on it?  Do you like it?  Do you carry it with you?  If not, would you be willing to?  Do you know where your battery charger and memory cards are?  Do you know how to get the pictures onto your computer?  If you answered “no” to any of these questions, you either need to learn more about your camera, or get a new one.  But don’t do it yet.  Not until my next post.

Up next:  choosing a camera (the low-tech way), and deciding when the time is right… for taking pictures, that is.

Until then, I leave you with these shots (If you click on them, it will take you to my Flickr account, where you can see all the pictures I took that did not make the cut.)  I’ll say it again, take LOTS of pictures.