OK, one of the reasons Elliot has appeared so infrequently on this blog is that it is really hard (for me at least) to take pictures of babies. They have no neck control so if I try to prop him up his head sinks down into his shoulders, if I lay him down on his back he looks like a giant head with a tiny appendage (the rest of his body) and if I lay him on his stomach you can't see his face at all because he looks directly into the blanket.
So my question to you, my dear friends and family, is what can I do to improve my infant photos? Specifically, how do I get the camera to register those blue, blue eyes that are so obvious when I look at him but look like black holes in the picture? What can I do to pose him so he looks more like a baby and less like an alien? Are there tricks that I am just missing?? Please give me some advice.
Here are some of the results of this afternoon's photo session.
10 comments:
Is this THE Ryan Halverson...from the Hill Cumorah Pageant? Holy smokes! It's Amy Temple (Schofield)! Great to see you. I just found you on Julie's blog. Yay! What a gorgeous family you have. The baby is yummy! If you maybe spread a blanket over a boppie of something, then put him in that with his head up a bit it would look great. Also...I'm thinking if you had him facing a window and turned off the flash, that pretty blue would show. He sure is a doll!
Just looked at your blog a little more...your pictures are gorgeous! Someone is a talented photographer!
okay, wait. ryan, you were at the hill cumorah pageant?! did we already make this connection, or am i way, way too clueless? amy temple, you are the missing link! time for another trip to raleigh to figure this all out.
by the way, elliott is adorable, and i can see his blue eyes! your photos are fabulous.
It WAS the Pageant, right Ryan? Am I crazy? Don't answer that.
Course, my solution is to take 100+ pictures of Hy-guy and even if I only get 5% that are usable, I still have 5, right? Besides, not every picture has to be Super Angel Baby. (Just see my post about the Evil Overlord.) Babies can come with some great facial expressions to caption.
My suggestion for posing is to use blankets/towels rolled up and arranged under a blanket to help prop up what needs propping up, etc. As for the blue eyes issue...not sure. I'll pass this post on to my photo expert brother-in-law and get back to you.
Apparently I'm Peanut's expert bro-in-law, but I don't know about that! There's the two sides to the issue 1) the technical aspects of the photography and 2) posing. For the technical part, the key is good lighting (usually heavier in one direction to give some soft shadows for depth, but overall it should be well lit so the photo is crisp and doesn't get blurred with longer exposure time) and a camera that has a quick response time so that when you press the button it doesn't wait for 5 seconds before taking the picture. If you have a camera like mine, you can get the autofocus to lock by holding it down halfway and that helps take the lag time down. The last technical thing is the processing of the photo after the fact, to get the blue eyes to stand out. You can use picasa or something similar for that (free).
For the posing aspect, sometimes we put the baby on a big blanket and put our hands under the baby behind the blanket to prop her up. It's more adaptable to floppy babies than the pillow thing. Then it's just taking a million photos as was mentioned previously. :-) You're more likely to capture the moment that way.
What a sweetheart!
I think your photos look great, but I am the world's worst photographer ever. But what cute subjects anyway!
i think those are awesome photos! i can't wait to see that little guy in person.
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