The most important part of photographing any person is keeping the subject’s attention and getting the subject to relax. Babies can be easy or difficult. Sheila is an example of an easy subject. The few things that could have caused problems did not. The pictures accompanying this post are of a six week old child. Sheila is about three or four months old.
You can view the video of Sheila at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oXk3-d03eU.
I covered the mechanics of the two poses done in my first post in March of 2016. I would suggest viewing the video then reading the first post. Then come back to this post.
The first few seconds of the video shows the mother and grandmother bringing the baby into the camera room which is the conference room of a chain of small town food stores. While the mother held the baby I said high to Sheila and quickly got what I wanted, a smile in return.
I didn’t keep talking to her after this. This is important. She wanted to interact with me and the mother and grandmother had seen that she was responding well. Until I was actually ready to capture those smiles there was no need to keep talking to her anymore than necessary. I am not there to play with babies. I am there to pose and photograph them. Every child is different. This one might stay interested for a half an hour or maybe just a few minutes. I can’t tell until too late. Never waste time playing with a child longer than necessary to get what you want.
You will notice that Grandma first tries to adjust the blanket, then later, briefly, tries to help get Sheila to smile. She keeps retreating, sometimes to the doorway and finally to a chair off to the side where she can watch without being in the way. Perfect. She may have had previous experience with me or she may have heard about me from a friend. Either way she eventually was able to control herself and stay out of the way and enjoy it.
Also, while I was setting up everything, Mom straightened the child’s clothing. I would prefer she not do this. Sheila kept watching me but another time with another child this might result in the child interacting with Mom and wanting to get picked up. This time it didn’t.
After getting all of the poses we could use of Sheila sitting up I then gave the baby to Mom while I set up the camera and the table for a tummy pose. I thought she would hold her head up high enough with just one four inch thick posing block under the blanket. I was wrong. I then placed two blocks under her. This has the effect of lowering her bottom and bringing up her head. With two blocks I can frequently do this pose with babies that are only a few days old. Every child is different and the same child may be different every day. I can’t predict with certainty what they will do. I can adjust to what they do in reaction to me and everything else in the room.
After the sitting it was time to make nice to Mom and Grandma. I had not been paying much attention to them up to this point. I did something I usually don’t do. I showed them the images on the back of the camera. This was in a store promotion. There were no set appointments. People would just walk in during the advertised time. If I was busy I couldn’t do this. I did tell them I usually don’t do this. I wouldn’t be able to do this if other people were waiting or if they, Grandma and Mom, had not behaved so well.
When I showed them the images, I explained that these were uncropped and not enhanced images. (Yes, we enhance almost everything.) I gave them some idea of what part of the image would be in their final prints. I was not going to see them again before they picked up their pictures. We were going to pick the best four poses. (We advertised a two pose package and they ordered two packages.) I reassured them that most people were very pleased with their finished prints but if they had any concerns when they saw the final prints, they should call us. We could fix it.
Showing people the images on the back of the camera is usually not a good idea. It is better to wait and show them the images on a larger screen. You may do this immediately after the sitting. It may be a few days later after you have selected a few of the best images and have enhanced them to show them under the best possible conditions. I made an exception this time. Even after more than a decade of shooting digital I still resist showing the images on the camera screen. It is too small. It is too hard to show cropping. It is usually a bad idea. This time it worked and I left it in the video.
I often tell the parents and child care providers that all children are easy to photograph. The ones that seem the easiest are the ones that we make the fewest mistakes with. With Sheila we did enough things right and few enough things wrong that she seemed easy. Things that went wrong were Grandma moving in and out and worst of all getting behind me. In this case we did enough things right that it had no noticeable ill effect.