How To Take Lovely Pictures Of Your Baby Yourself

Taking portrait photos of your baby is a great fun. And if you want to capture the great moment of your baby without hiring a professional photographer, it is a great idea to give it a try yourself. All you need is a digital camera to capture those lovely moment. And these cameras with decent capability of capturing pictures are pretty affordable.

Unlike Commercial Photography or Fashion Photography where everything has to be perfect, baby pictures taken by you can sometimes capture that one unique, really cute facial expression especially if you have access to some simple photo editing software on your computer (which often comes with a new camera when you purchase it) as you can tweak each picture to improve it and remove any slight marks.

Doing it yourself means you can try and try again especially as you will more than likely be in the right place at the right time. Have a look at the following tips as they will give you a great starting point:

Shoot more pictures than you need

Sometimes you need to shoot 20 to 30 pictures or more to get the image you really like. Getting the true essence of the baby is all important and digital photography makes it easier to discard the pictures you don’t want unlike the old days of film and prints

Have someone to help

If you are doing the pictures yourself a good idea is to have someone there to assist you and more importantly to entertain the baby so that you get that perfect picture. This will ensure you don’t miss that cute smile or adorable facial expression.

Why not use the opportunity to have those first family photos done whilst they are still babies or even just one with Mum and baby or just Dad and baby. Some of the best baby shots are the ones showing the intimacy of a baby with a parent.

Use burst mode

If you are the one taking the pictures then a good idea is to use the burst mode on the camera settings to try and capture that one image that happens in a split of a second

Light & Time of day

Early morning or evening Natural light is best as babies look especially good in soft natural light. If you have to use flash for baby portrait photographs then remember that babies are prone to red-eye but any decent photographer can offset the flash or use the built-in red-eye reduction setting on the camera to eliminate this

Avoid distracting backgrounds

Remove clutter and keep your backgrounds natural and soft in colour and texture. As with Portrait Photography, go for timeless simple clothes and backgrounds that won’t look dated in the future.

White sheets or a duvet are always a good idea to use as they bounce light back onto the subject and can reduce any shadows

Keep baby happy and entertained

A good idea is to take the pictures just after the baby has been fed and changed and preferably after a nap although should the little one drift off during the shoot, then they can create great opportunities for those adorable sleeping baby pictures and close ups of toes and fingers

Familiar surroundings

A good thing about babies being so small is that it is very easy to create a small studio environment right in their own homes. This is great as they are familiar with the smells and sounds around and much more likely to be happy and content with the intrusion in their busy day.

Get down to their level

If your joints and muscles will allow it then try to take your pictures from the baby’s eye perspective as their world is much more interesting for producing great pictures than the adult’s eye view.

Useful things for the Shoot

Baby wipes, a fresh nappy, a bottle of baby milk, a rattle, a feather tickler, a balloon and anything like Dad or Mum’s shoes or all the pots and pans to capture that great emotion

Avoid anything that may frighten the baby and do not give food as encouragement where possible as you will more than likely end up with a lot of airbrushing to do on those final pictures you like – unless a dirty adorable face is just what you are trying to get.

Be patient

Don’t try and force the shot and keep everything as natural as possible and the right shot will happen if you are patient. Baby Portrait Photography is about creativity, so don’t worry about getting everything right as some of the best pictures are the imperfect ones. Just make sure the camera is always ready and most of all make it fun and know when enough is enough.