8 day old Mason

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I am not a baby photographer, nor do I want to be....babies are tough! Koodos to all you baby photographers out there, I don't know how you are able to pose them in all the cute, adorable poses that you do.
This is a friend of the family's first child and they asked me if I would take a few photos for them. I thought it was a good way to practice.
How did I do?

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A couple more :)

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This 2 were just cute outtakes that I managed to grab while trying to get him to pose and hold the pose for me to take the photo I wanted. Thought they were adorable, and mom loves them so I guess they're keepers :)

[moeronn]

I think you did a pretty good job with the captures, but they could use some more processing to improve them. Several of them seem underexposed (especially #2) and you could soften the baby's skin in #1. The glasses shot is my favorite.

Took me a second look to see why you wanted to keep the first outtake. :D

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Thank you for your comments :)
The mom wanted the "darker, contrasty" photos is the way she explained them, so that's what I tried to accomplish for her.
I generally wouldn't soften or smooth baby skin at all, I always thought that was a big no-no?
Thank you again for the critique.

[moeronn]

The exposure and contrast for 3 & 4 works really well and the conversion is also really good. Number 2 just looks dark and a little dull, so more exposure and contrast would help. Maybe show her what you would normally do and see how she likes that in comparison.

As for skin smoothing, my opinion and based on what I have seen is that removing/minimizing redness, rashes, baby acne, etc is acceptable. You just don't want to full glamour smoothing and turn the baby into a doll.