Baby photography doubts

[tlzimmerman]

Do your best not to force it. Go into it with the idea of having fun. Then, as the kid relaxes and starts to play, start taking your shots. Be ready AT ALL TIMES, you never know when that smile will hit and the eyes will swing towards your lens, and you have to be ready to nail it. Be patient and persistent, the shots will come.

The other thing that is most important is to get the parents in the right frame of mind. In an uncertain situation, a baby or toddler is really effected by the mood of their parents. If their parents are nervous, and uptight, the kid will pick up on it. Bringing them in in a relaxed/happy state of mind from a previous consult I think is huge to the success of kids sessions.

Correct me if I am wrong, but when shooting your own kid you were probably not completely relaxed, stressed about the space, stressed about him not sitting still, maybe even frustrated. Kids can sense calm confidence.....use that to your advantage.

[DarkBoxPhotography]

There was a bit tention when shooting my son. It's all still very new to me, so I have a lot on my mind to control. It will all come with experince I'm sure. There will be less thinking about light positioning, settings, camera and more about expression, fun and pictures.

The shoot on sunday went good. I was a bit nervous at the begining, but the more I shot the more relaxed I and everybody around me was. It wasn't an ideal first session as there was too many people there for my liking - me, my Mrs, our son, one parent (mom), her sister and of course baby daughter. Quite a lot of people, but as it was lovely outside, I set out a little place in my garden where they were all relaxing, while I was sweating inside re-positioning and re-setting the lights in between mini-sessions.

I was glad I made a little mental plan beforehand and while it all was a bit sidetracked by new ideas, I'm sure it all looked a bit more professional. And I wasn't wasting too much time setting it all up. The whole session was about 3 hours.

I didn't want to shoot any more than 2 people together at the same time due to the lack of space, but in the end they asked me to take picture of them all (mom + sister + daughter) and it worked.

There is a little bit too much photoshop work now to be done for my liking though. I only have 2 lights, so all the shots with white background needs to be corrected in PS, right PITA the white background is. Thankfully I was expecting that and after the initial 'formal' pictures, I got rid of it and changed it.

Out of 550 pictures, I selected 30 that I think are good. Out of this I'll probably give them about 20. The mom asked me for as many as possible, but 20-30 is more than enough.

I plan to offer only 2 pictures out of each session in future (2 large prints), but as this was on TFCD basis, and she will spreading them all over Facebook, I'll give her more

[DarkBoxPhotography]

Few of my recent ones.



I have another 'client' (friend of a friend) coming for pictures tomorrow. After that I need to start looking for paying clients. Won't be easy, that's for sure.

[Bend The Light]

All those 4 are fabulous. Nicely done, sharp eyes, gorgeous kids. Looks like you're getting it sorted, anyway.

[DarkBoxPhotography]

Thanks. I have my moments when I think this is such a bad idea, I invested a lot of money and time and not seen a single penny in return, but I'm hoping people will like the pictures and I might get one or two paying clients. If I can't find anybody for a month or two, I will have to sell my lighting kit and probably some of the camera gear as well and call it a day.

Right now I need to invest in large (A2) size portfolio, because I want clients to see that when it comes to photos, the bigger is better