OK, so we aren’t quite in Scotland yet, but already our minds are there and it always pays to plan ahead. Time is moving quickly, less than 5 months until we move, we are planning to cut down working with media clients and increase our private client base, so more weddings and more portraits. We already have a fair bit of experience in most aspects of portraiture, but recently we cut our teeth with our first baby and family portrait shot and it’s definitely something we plan to do a lot more of once we move back to Scotland.
As far as we can tell, the majority of photographers doing baby shoots in Scotland are doing somewhat sterile studio shoots. Studio shoots are great, you can do a lot with them, but a family dressed up in their Sunday best sitting on seats with a pure white background isn’t really a true representation of how a family is in my book. We want to use a a more elaborate studio setting and also get something more natural, either around the family house and garden, in a park or on a beach. Getting dressed up is great, but we’d like to have the balance with more casual clothes as well.
For our first shoot with a baby the other week, we got to try out some of what we wanted to do. We did a shoot for a couple and their 100 day old baby, in a park near their house and also in their house. Ideally I would have went for shooting in and around their house using furniture, windows etc as props, but the family asked for a more simple studio like session. Although it wasn’t particularly what we we would like to do, the customer always gets what they want and we get to add a little something in of our own.
A few days before our scheduled shoot there was constant heavy rain so it looked as if we weren’t going to get our outside shoot done, we were supposed to start at 9am and the forecast was for heavy showers until noon, luckily our clients were willing to put the time back until afternoon to see if the weather would clear, if not an extended session at their house, one with us doing the studio style set up they requested and then doing the shoot using their house and it’s props as the studio. As it turned out, the rain stopped about 25 mins before we arrived, the sun came out and it was decided we would do a session in their local park and then move onto their house and use the backdrops and materials we brought to do the studio set up.
First up, we arrived in the park. It was very damp under foot, so we had to keep the family up right most of the time (would have been nice to roll about on the grass). We used large 185cm reflectors to catch the light next to and below the family as we Sue blew bubbles in the air, made lots of “goo goo” noises to keep the baby’s attention, and when we were shooting only one parent with the baby, we got the other parent to stand where we wanted to the baby to look and got them to call the baby to make our job easier. I’d heard a few full time baby photographers suggest this and it really did help, so thanks to all those who shared knowledge. Here are some images from the first session in the park. I used my 5DmkII and 7D, mostly with the 50mm f1.2L, 100mm f2.8L macro (which is a good portrait lens, subject for a future blog I think) and my 70-200mm f2.8L which I mostly kept mounted on the 7D:
After that, we moved to a bench under some trees, the lighting was OK, but I wanted to add a little fill light to the scene so Sue stood off to the side camera right and held a 580EXII speedlite high up pointing down at the family on the bench. I shot a lot with my 50mm f1.2L and 100mm, but I wanted some really wide shots from this session as well and I finished off by getting up really close with the 17-40mm f4L lens fully wide open at 17mm and only about 30cm for the baby:
Throughout the session I kept showing the family the photos so they knew what things were looking like and they seemed very happy and wanted to head to their home which was fine by us as we were happy to have gotten a break in the weather and things were clouding over again. However, when we were heading back to their car we passed a little swing which was made for babies and it seemed like a shame to waste such a good prop, so we did a quick 5 minute shoot there, Sue holding the reflector camera left for the shots of baby and dad, then behind mum with the speedlite when she was pushing baby. For em it was amazing to see how much a baby’s face can change in a matter of seconds as I was taking some shots:
So after maybe 45 mins in the park wandering about different spots and getting some different looks we headed off to the family house with a pile of gear in tow (camera bag, 2 light stands, umbrella, softboz, large backdrop, white background, baby hats and glasses, white hairy rug, veils and even adult clothes and hair pins etc…all Sue’s planning) and set up for the second part of the shoot that was to be the “studio at home.” For this part of the shoot, fore planning is essential. Sue had already talked with the mother at length in advance about what kind of looks she wanted and she wanted a mix of classic and elegant as well as casual. We’d already done a casual park shoot, so we wanted something a bit classy and the mum in question had really liked our maternity shoot feel from a previous blog from earlier this year and we were very happy to oblige. After a classy shoot with mum and baby we wanted to go for a casual dad and baby look, some baby on his own and then the whole family together with the focus on baby. Forward planning isn’t just about talking about it and having a rough idea, we like to story board our ideas and seeing as how my ability to draw hasn’t progressed since the age of 8, Sue came up with ideas, drew them out and then I added rough notes with coloured pens about how I wanted to light the scene. We use these ideas to build on a concept and it’s also useful to explain to clients what we are going to do with visuals. In this family situation, the mother was Korean, the father Japanese, Sue was using both languages ith each person, I used Japanese with both and Sue and I used English between us, so visuals help to keep confusion down to a minimum when several languages are getting used. Anyway, I really get a lot of energy from Sue’s ideas, her concepts are great, I know what I am doing lighting/photo wise, so we make a good combination for this type of work and we are really only just scratching the surface of our potential. Sue’s actually made plans for years down the line with a full studio set up which is blowing my mind in a good way…that’s a blog for a few years from now (still planning ahead you see). So, here’s some of the story boarding:
Once the back drop was set up and the lights in place, it was just a case of getting everyone in position, using the story board as a guide to the family and for each photo, I tried to get to the same level as the baby, so if mum was holding him, I was level with them, if baby was on the ground on his belly, so was I. There wasn’t much room in their living room where we set up the studio, so I used the 24-70mm lens a lot on my 5DmkII as it allowed me to get wide and close up shots.Here are some of the final images from the end of the day:
Although we didn’t have time to use every concept we wanted to, we got a lot done and we were pretty happy with the results for our first baby shoot. Hopefully we’ll do a few more before we leave Japan and when we arrive in Scotland it’s be great to have a few more shoots set up already.