Baby Portrait

So as i have been working onmy lighting techniques I had a oppertunity to do some baby portraits. I have now learned that taking baby portraits is a whole other ballfield and I am no where near ready to play.
I think I got a few good shots though and thought I would share one.

If you would like to comment please feel free.



Thanks for the time.
BSPhoto

BSPhoto, I see three elements in the photo. Background, baby, and rocking horse. All elements seem to have equal importance. Was this your intent? Could you have moved the subject farther from the BG and used shallower DOF to minimize it? Does the horse need the same attention as baby? I like the expression, you seem to have a willing subject. That's alot in little people shots. Kevin

kevin atkinson said:

BSPhoto, I see three elements in the photo. Background, baby, and
rocking horse. All elements seem to have equal importance.

Click to expand...

Four, if you add the clothes. Which is an issue because the horse and the clothes are both lighter in tone, and have more light on them, than anything else in the picture... including the subject.

Which means the eye is drawn to them... and not the subject.

I would like to have more contrast so the contours got more visible. This lightning is quite soft.

Michael Long said:

kevin atkinson said:

BSPhoto, I see three elements in the photo. Background, baby, and
rocking horse. All elements seem to have equal importance.

Click to expand...

Four, if you add the clothes. Which is an issue because the horse
and the clothes are both lighter in tone, and have more light on
them, than anything else in the picture... including the subject.

Click to expand...

I think so too. Maybe some clothes that were a bit darker making them harder to overexpose.

Michael Long said:

Which means the eye is drawn to them... and not the subject.

Click to expand...

mart1234 said:

I would like to have more contrast so the contours got more
visible. This lightning is quite soft.

Click to expand...

That one's hard to say, as I tend to think most of the softness we're seeing is coming from an unsharpened reduced-size image. PS reduction can make many images appear soft...

The softness is from the reduction to web size.

As far as the clothing goes I did not have much say. The mother was going to use a Lime green outfit. I had to to almost refuse to shoot to get the outfit I got.

As far as the exposure goes i am not sure. I had to pretty much light the horse, stick the child on or next to it. The subject was very hard to get to stay in one place. This was one good pose out of about 60 frames. I agree that the subject needs to stand out more, I have been adjusting the exposure some in Photoshop nd have a better image that I will post tommorrow(I am currently at work).

One thing that I should mention as well is that I was at the mothers house in an extremely small living room. I did this on location, not in a studio. Getting the child away from the background and in one spot for more than a second or two was near to impossible.

BSPhoto

I would iron or steam my backdrop next time

BSPhoto said:

So as i have been working onmy lighting techniques I had a
oppertunity to do some baby portraits. I have now learned that
taking baby portraits is a whole other ballfield and I am no where
near ready to play.
I think I got a few good shots though and thought I would share one.

If you would like to comment please feel free.



Thanks for the time.
BSPhoto

Click to expand...

OK after some suggestions and some photoshop work here is a new sample. Is it getting better or worse??



BSPhoto

BSPhoto said:

So as i have been working onmy lighting techniques I had a
oppertunity to do some baby portraits. I have now learned that
taking baby portraits is a whole other ballfield and I am no where
near ready to play.
I think I got a few good shots though and thought I would share one.

If you would like to comment please feel free.



Thanks for the time.
BSPhoto

Click to expand...

to get this, you need to manipulate the photo in PS. But if you shoot so several pictures, the process will be time consuming (not mention the hair headache stuff). So how do we do it right at the first place, say get the object/face clear, blur the horse/clothes, and then maybe blur a bit more on background?

BSPhoto said:

BSPhoto

BSPhoto said:

So as i have been working onmy lighting techniques I had a
oppertunity to do some baby portraits. I have now learned that
taking baby portraits is a whole other ballfield and I am no where
near ready to play.
I think I got a few good shots though and thought I would share one.

If you would like to comment please feel free.



Thanks for the time.
BSPhoto

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

So actuslly time spent on the post processing was about 2 minutes roughly.

To get this in camera you would need to open the apperature more to decrease DOF. I am not sure as to what exact setting you would have to have. My guess would be some where around 2.8f.

The other way would be to increase your distance of subject from background and photog from subject(if you have the room).

For me, I as in a small living room and had a subject that would not sit still for anything. I managed to get about 12 to 16 good keepers from the shoot.

BSPhoto

phonhom said:

BSPhoto said:

BSPhoto

BSPhoto said:

So as i have been working onmy lighting techniques I had a
oppertunity to do some baby portraits. I have now learned that
taking baby portraits is a whole other ballfield and I am no where
near ready to play.
I think I got a few good shots though and thought I would share one.

If you would like to comment please feel free.



Thanks for the time.
BSPhoto

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

BSPhoto said:

So actuslly time spent on the post processing was about 2 minutes
roughly.
To get this in camera you would need to open the apperature more to
decrease DOF. I am not sure as to what exact setting you would have
to have. My guess would be some where around 2.8f.
The other way would be to increase your distance of subject from
background and photog from subject(if you have the room).

For me, I as in a small living room and had a subject that would
not sit still for anything. I managed to get about 12 to 16 good
keepers from the shoot.

BSPhoto

Click to expand...

I would have used a blue or green background to increase contrast.

BSPhoto said:

phonhom said:

BSPhoto said:

BSPhoto

BSPhoto said:

So as i have been working onmy lighting techniques I had a
oppertunity to do some baby portraits. I have now learned that
taking baby portraits is a whole other ballfield and I am no where
near ready to play.
I think I got a few good shots though and thought I would share one.

If you would like to comment please feel free.



Thanks for the time.
BSPhoto

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...