photography. meme

Sarah June 20, 2013

Newborn photography at home. part one. #Mamarazzi #photography101

If you have ever happened across my photography page, there is a wee little link thing down there to the right then you would notice that I have a whole area of my site dedicated to photographing babies. Since i work with newborns and have done ( as a neonatal nurse) for 12 years now, it has seemed like a natural step to newborn photography.

Its sort of a niche area of photography. It is a pleasure to do but can take a long time (which i guess is why so many photographers avoid it!) and i love meeting these little miracles and getting to know another little person.

I often get asked about how to get lovely images of babies when they are so new. So i thought i would do a few posts with some hints and tips to getting some lovely images of your newborn baby. Easy things that you can do at home.

So part one, i thought i would explain a little about the environment that would be a good place to start if you have a newborn and you want to try and get some cute shots.

Newborns have just come out of a very warm environment in the womb. Its very warm in there, about 38degrees. So if you are thinking cute naked baby shots then you need to have your environment warm. Babies cannot regulate their temperature when they are born so its important to make sure you do that for them. My general rule is if you are uncomfortably hot then the baby will be happy 🙂
Choose a time when your baby is usually most settled. Often babies are sleepy in the morning and start to crank up the grumps towards the evening. Not always the way, you know your baby the best.
When a baby is in utero it is NOISY! Lots of noises! Anyone who has a newborn will marvel at the fact that their new baby will nod off next to the washing machine on full spin. So its a really useful tip to download a white noise phone app and have it playing near your baby. Or you can use a womb noise teddy things you can get to soothe newborns to sleep.
Look for signs that indicate when your baby is relaxed and settled. Babies have a way of communicating….honestly! It isnt always all crying.

Signs that they may not be in the best place for being a model…

Stretching their hands towards you and up towards their face or splaying their fingers apart in front of the their face, yawning, hiccuping and sneezing excessively, arching their back or moving their arms and legs frantically.

Signs that they are ready to play model…

well fed or just fed, wrapping them up in a blanket or other loose item to feed them and settle them. One thing that will for sure wake your baby up is fumbling a onesie over its head when its asleep.
Rock your baby back and forth to imitate the movements that would have settled them in the womb. how many mothers always say that their babies were still as could be when they were on the go and then woke up to party when they lay down. A slow rocking motion copies this and will help lull your baby to sleep.
Once they are asleep you can gently pop them on the beanbag or pillow that you want to use to photograph them on.

….and how you go about setting that up will be in my next newborn mamarazzi post!!

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Sarah June 17, 2013

Cycling freedom #motivationalmonday #themondayclub

Having five young children its always been fairly hard to actually be in a place where we can take them all cycling. There has always been one at that in between stage of being too big for a seat on the back of an adult bike but too small to be able to cycle independently without stabilisers etc etc.

Being as my OH is a bit of a bike nut, rides his bike to work every day, all the kids who are school age have been riding their bikes confidently without stabilisers since around the age of 4…it seems crazy that as a family we haven’t at least tried to do more! But the big draw back? I didnt have a bike. Until recently. We took the plunge and invested in a bike for me and so far we have had two bike riding days out with the kids.

Its a great way of getting out and about with the kids. Its cheap, green and you can cover some really quite large distances. So its lovely to make a day of it.

At the moment we have our two youngest still on kiddy seats on adult bikes. But im sure it wont be long before our 4 year old will be wanting a bit of her own independence!

Its easy to find dedicated cycleways and we discovered a long and flat route locally and this week we took off for an afternoon to attempt a little bit of it.

The kids had a great time and the KM just flew by without them even noticing that they were getting exercise! Made a lot easier by the fact that they had a couple of friends with them as well, so there was much laughing and giggling as we rode through the countryside. We came across a skate park on our route and the kids all had a go on their bikes. Those ramps are steep and probably not the best place for a toddler. She played chicken with them most of the time and gave us a couple of near heart attacks as she dodged the bikes flying towards her!

We finished the ride of with hot chocolate on the beach, courtesy of the kelly kettle and it was a pretty good end to Father’s day.

🙂

these two in the first picture are my oldest and youngest…people always say how alike they are. er…yep. some family resemblence!! 🙂

My giveaway this week is rolling over from last week as it is such a great one! A fabulous Hotel Chocolat gift box, have you tasted their chocolate? It is amazing! Just follow the rafflecopter and don’t forget you can still enter to win a gorgeous luxury box from LUSH and help out the guys at the incredible charity beonpercent. Thank YOU!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Motivational Monday

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Sarah June 15, 2013

#silentsunday

OneDad3Girls TheBoyandMe's 365 Linky

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Sarah June 8, 2013

#silentsunday

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Sarah June 7, 2013

Moving towards the light #mamarazzi #photography101

Light is what photography is all about, you get that by now right? Light pretty much governs everything about your image so its fairly significant!

A lovely way of lighting is by putting your light to the side of the subject, it adds a real depth to an image, a lovely three dimensional quality. You know when you look at an image and there is just something about it that draws you in, often that is because this sort of lighting is being used. Its the sort of image that has a really strong distinction between the highlights and shadow across the face.

A general rule is to put your subject at a 45 degree angle to the source of light, which for most of us in going to be a window if we are inside and trying to get our kids to sit still. Or it can be outside usually when the sun has a directional quality about it, like during the golden hour (hour after sunrise and hour before sunset)

This is harder to control when you are taking a picture of a kid, the reason for this? Same as usual. They move. If they turn their head that little too much you are going to end up with all in shadow. One way of working out if it is slightly too much is if you look in the eyes of your child and can’t see catchlights in both. They chances are they have moved too much, so just try and get them to turn a little, easier said than done right! 😉

It is a beautiful style of lighting and is a favourite of portraiture photographers. It adds so much to the picture, its also pretty good for slimming if you are thinking of wanting to loose a few pounds as well 😉

Okay so here is a little project you can try out… this is a really clever and everso simple thing you can do here…this works in any lighting scenario to be honest…in the little diagram at the top of this image you can see that next to the person icon is a line saying reflector.

This does pretty much what is says and reflects light. It absolutely does not need to be a massive big reflector that you might have seen professionals using. No. It can be anything white pretty much…white is a very good reflector of light. Just even by using a sheet of paper you can see changes.

I did a demonstration with this today with my daughter who was a total trooper after having her pre-school booster imms this morning. She was working for smarties it has to be said. Ive done no editing to these images so you can see it as is. This is really easy to do…no dont think its all fancy photographer stuff. You can do it!! Try it out.

So here it is…sit your subject next to window or a light and aim for about 45 degree to the light…So this first shot is just the window light, you can see where the light drops off her face. yes?

Enter reflector to the left, this is a white bit of card that i got from b and q. You can see how the side of her face has just brightened up a bit. She did turn a little bit away in this one.

another reflector, you can see what it is by scrolling down. The reflector is on her lap so reflecting the light back into her face. The shadows have almost balanced out on her face now.