Five tips for taking AMAZING photos of your newborn baby
Introducing a newborn into your family is both amazing and overwhelming. With all the feedings, diapers and staring at your little one sleep even as you’re sleep deprived, it can be challenging to create beautiful images of those precious first days. Here are a few tips to help you make those first photos album-worthy.
1. Keep That Flash Off
Newborns are still adjusting to being outside of your womb and probably don’t enjoy being stunned by a camera’s flash every 5 minutes. Do your baby a favour and don’t use a flash if possible. Look for a north-facing window, which lets indirect light in and will bathe your baby with a beautiful, soft light. You’ll also have more dimension in your images by avoiding the harsh, flattening effects of a direct flash.
2. Photograph Your Newborn as a Newborn
Instead of propping them up unnaturally or adorning them in a baseball bat and cap, capture your newborn doing what they do best – being newborns. Photograph them in their cute little outfits then try a few shots just in their diaper, lying on their tummy on a solid coloured blanket, for example. If you’re blessed and your child sleeps a lot, photograph them yawning away or in deep slumber. You’ll want to remember those good old days soon enough.
3. Get Close
Don’t be afraid to get up close and personal when photographing your baby. They probably won’t flinch or hide their face like your adult friends would when shooting at such a close range and trust me, your photos will be that much more beautiful when the frame is filled with the sweet face of your newborn.
4. Get Closer
Use the macro shooting function (the flower symbol) to get even closer for those detail shots of your new baby’s little fingers and toes, curvaceous lips, button nose and fluttering eyelashes. Detail shots look great in a collage or scrapbook.
5. Convey a Sense of Scale
Babies grow so quickly and we soon forget just how tiny they were. Don’t forget to photograph them in Daddy’s arms or lifted up to Mommy’s loving gaze. Photographing babies next to an adult will give you a sense of scale and remind you how small your six-foot tall teenage son used to be. And how about taking a photo every month of your child next to their favourite teddy bear and watch them outgrow it through the months ahead.
Keeping a few of these tips in mind can help you create long lasting, beautiful images both you and your children will treasure years down the road.
Guest post by Laura Hana, the founder of the OAC Photo Club and Dolcepics.com.
