Newborn Session Tip #1 : How to prepare for your session
Having a newborn session is very different from any other portrait session your baby will have. Photographing a new arrival within the first two weeks of life is nothing shy of amazing. It also allows me to capture your little one's fleeting moments. These moments go by in the blink of an eye. Mom and Dad are sleep deprived, drained but oh so excited. Your newborn session is scheduled well before baby arrives. Once this is done, I like to keep in touch with my clients. I generally advise them to keep me posted with things. Most of my clients will call while in the hospital ( or on the way to the hospital) excited and slightly scared. I LOVE this. Some reassuring words and a good luck helps greatly. The final date and time for a newborn session is made once mom has had baby or JUST home. This way the session is not forgotten or put off until baby is older and the newborn stage unfortunately cannot be re-created. YOU:
It's also VERY important to take care of YOU! Believe me I've been there. Once baby arrives. ALL your attention and focus is on this new little life and everything else gets put on the back burner. However if you don't take time for you ( yes it can be done) in a short period of time you'll realize just how fast you crash. And it's NOT pretty. Your hormones are a screaming roller coaster mess and you cry at the drop of a hat. If you are participating in your baby's newborn session then there is nothing wrong with accepting help from family and friends so you can get ready too. I certainly do not expect ( nor want you to) go all out with pampering JUST for the session. It can be as simple as taking care of your hands, neat, clean trimmed nails, natural makeup ( the way you'd normally wear it) and having your hair brushed. Let's face it, even getting around to brushing our teeth and a trip to the bathroom made you feel a million bucks! :)
Baby:
All of my newborn sessions are done in studio. I am based out of Ajax and work out of my home. We are a pet free ( minus 2 fish), non-smoking household. Upon arrival to the studio, should baby be sleeping that's AWESOME ;) Let's leave baby as is until we are ready to get going. I will welcome you into my home studio. Get comfortable, and just relax. I've been so blessed during sessions both mom and dad have caught a few zzz's while entrusting me with their newborn. Love that! When working with your little one, the best way to photograph them is when they are sleeping. Belly full, warm and dry bottom allows me to create some gorgeous magical photographs for you and your family to adorn. We break for feeds, cuddles and changes so don't worry. We will most likely get a good mix of some of his or her personality. A newborns eyes are not able to focus yet so very often goes cross eyed. On special occasions though baby will give awesome eye contact to bring tears to any parent. It goes back to what I've said before. It's WHY I do what I do. Touching the heart!
Lastly as far as clothing for baby. Au naturel is best. I do add a few props in here and there for you, but our main focus is on our most important subject. Baby. The wrinkles, folds, squish and fuzzy adorable newness of your baby. A few items that come in handy are extra wipes, outfits to travel in just in case lol, burp cloths, diapers and a soother to calm baby.
Helpful tips such as these and what to expect is awesome! I love providing as much information as I can to my clients so that come session day. We are informed and ready to go! Stress free and a beautiful experience!
Drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you. Stay tuned for Newborn Session Tip #2!
Before and After: Post processing help
I frequently get asked about my work. About the workflow and how you get from point A ( taking your a picture) to point B ( the final result). So I thought today would be a good time as any to help you and explain a few simple steps what I do. So let's start with a simple image. Attached here is one from a recent newborn session. This is straight out of the camera. Or in a photographers lingo SOOC. So let's start with an image. These twin brothers were in studio a few weeks ago. My studio set up consists of a single Elinchrom Octabox. I use an awesome bean bag that the little ones lay on. I absolutely love it. By far one of my best investments for the business. The bean bag is from Shoot Baby.
This set up was pretty simple. Babies were laying on the throw, a space heater off to the side. It's VERY important that while photographing newborns, they are kept warm, comfortable and full tummies. It makes ALL the difference in your images. My lighting was off to the side at a 45 degree angle from where I was ( straight overhead babies) After a few test shots, I decided to raise up the octabox slightly higher so that baby B ( on your right) wasn't in too much of a shadow from his older brother.
Camera settings were 1/125th, ISO 100 ( I always keep at this when shooting with studio lighting) and I used my 50mm 1.4. My f/stop was at 5.6 here.
SO here is my SOOC.
It's important to me to get a good exposure as best as possible in camera. The more you practice with your camera and get to know your settings, the easier this will be. Benefits of doing so will allow you to cut your post processing time down drastically! Therefore creating a smoother and quicker workflow for your business.
Seen above, image is not too bad, however here is the final image I created for mom and dad.
Sweet isn't it? Ok let me tell you how I got here. I opened the image up in Adobe Lightroom and adjusted the white balance. Babies had a slight bit of jaundice so I needed to remove some yellow in the skin tones. Once done, I exported to Photoshop. I still use CS3 ( have an upgrade just not got there yet lol) Why do I need to export? Because I need to convert my files from my camera into a DNG format. I do 90% of my work in PS vs LR. After I've opened up the image in PS I can then do any cropping and editing I would like. I crop all my images to an 8x10 format. Once done, I knew I wanted to lighten the image some more. I added an curve layer to the image and increased ever so slightly. Again, the more you work with your images in Photoshop, the more your eyes will be trained to know what looks good and what doesn't work.
Since I already adjusted the white balance on this image, and when I lightened it I wanted to add a slight bit of color back into the babies skin. The lighter an image is, it tends to wash out your tones. In order to do this I again added a layer adjustment and increased my saturation to 3-5%. Can't remember exactly. Almost done! From here I used an action called "Clarify". I always use this as a layer so that I can go back and adjust as needed. I never leave it at 100%. For me I can easily tell a digital image over a film one. The clarify action was run about 25% I believe. And voila! My finished product.
Mom and Dad loved this image so much they used it for their Birth Announcements as well as a gorgeous 16x20 Canvas to hang in their home.
If you enjoyed this post, that's awesome! I will be posting more content that will be helpful to you as well as educational. Should you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!
Drop me a line at petraking@rogers.com
Thanks a million and chat soon!
P
The Complete Baby & Toddler Directory:: PKP Spotlight on Business 2012
The first 2012 Spotlight on Business Posting!
Your Name: Katerina Kondovski
Your Company: The Complete Baby & Toddler Directory
Your Website: The Complete Baby & Toddler Directory
Your Email: katerina@completebabyandtoddler.com
Tell us a bit about yourself and how long you've been in business?
This is The Complete Baby & Toddler Directory’s second year in business. We provide a hard stock, soil bound baby planner to parents which they can use through pregnancy and into the toddler years. The book is FREE, you can find it in some hospitals, pre natal clinics, local businesses throughout the city, ultra sound clinics. pharmacy and most recently have entered the grocery industry. Parents can pick up a free copy at a Longos supermarket closest to them!
The book is a detailed planner where parents can log their appointments, important phone numbers, dates to remember, they can save pictures of their growing belly, a place to keep theirs and baby’s hospital bracelet, baby shower pics, recipes for toddlers, and so much more. You can download a copy online and take a look!
The directory part in the front of the planner is a directory of our sponsors who help put the book together. They are a list of local and national businesses who cater to parents with small children, as this book is not only used by parents 365 a year, but also kept as a keepsake for their little one, it is a great way for businesses to get their product or service in the face of these families
You can find more info and download a copy on the site at www.completebabyandtoddler.com
Go check them out! Very helpful info and something ALL mom's need these days a little help with organization!
Are you a business owner or know of someone who is working to make her business and passion succeed? Then drop me an email and perhaps you both could be featured on the PKP Spotlight on Business! petraking@rogers.com!
Baby love:: Whitby Newborn Session
She is gorgeous isn't she? Those cheeks, the fine little eyelashes and oh that baby mouth. Pure squish and I loved working with her during our Newborn session yesterday in studio here in Ajax. Mom was totally relaxed and caught shut eye for a few moments. ;) That was awesome! Meet Mackenzie, 12 days new and adorable. The gorgeous pixie hat used in this session was made from Bubblegirlknits! Lisa thanks very much. Love your work! You can find Lisa's products over at her shop: Bubblegirlknits.
Mom brought a few sweet things with her for the session. It's lovely when clients bring a little bit of their ideas to the table for the session too. It helps customize your newborn session and make it unique to you.
