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Archive 2013 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

cmcfalls
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

Greetings everyone!

I've been an avid lurker of this site for quite some time, admiring many of the shots I see on several of these sub-forums. But this is my very first post for C&C, so I'm a bit apprehensive to have other photographers see my work. It's hard to base anything on what the family and my wife says because they are emotionally attached. I know the photographers here will be a little more critical and honest. But, I want to learn and get better.

But first, a little background...

My wife and I decided to start shooting maternity and newborns recently. We've never shot professionally and it's always just been a hobby for us. But, we have a lot of close friends and family who are pregnant and are due within the next year. So we made the plunge, got some essential equipment, and let them all know.

Here are a few shots of our first newborn session. The parents loved them, but I am anxious to see what other photographers think. I know I have a critical eye to my own work, and I imagine other photographers will see some of the things that the family, and even my wife, would not see.

There were a lot of firsts here. First "session," first time post-processing, first time working with off-camera lighting (though most of these are natural lighting), etc. Basically, everything was a first for us. As such, there were many lessons learned as well. We are very new to this and open to tips, comments, and suggestions.

I have "the bug" now and am already looking forward to the next one! We will be shooting a baby boy within the next few weeks, followed quickly by another girl.

Amelia - 10 days old at the time of the shoot.

All shot on Canon T1i with 50mm 1.8 lens.

1

Amelia Web-1 by CJ McFalls, on Flickr

2

Amelia Web-7 by CJ McFalls, on Flickr

3

Amelia Web-9 by CJ McFalls, on Flickr

4

Amelia Web-10 by CJ McFalls, on Flickr

5

Amelia Web-16 by CJ McFalls, on Flickr

6

Amelia Web-15 by CJ McFalls, on Flickr

7

Amelia Web-17 by CJ McFalls, on Flickr

8

Amelia Web-18 by CJ McFalls, on Flickr

Thanks everyone for taking a look!

Dec 26, 2013 at 10:23 AM

gregfixit
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

I like 1 & 2 the best. All are very nice.
Greg

Dec 26, 2013 at 11:07 AM

no_surrender
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

All are nice. Great job on #3. I struggled with the background strand of lights during my first newborn session last weekend.

Don't care for the selective color on #4.

Loving #6! I couldn't seem to make the rings work. I love the way you positioned them!

Kevin

Dec 26, 2013 at 12:28 PM

cmcfalls
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

no_surrender wrote:
All are nice. Great job on #3. I struggled with the background strand of lights during my first newborn session last weekend.

Don't care for the selective color on #4.

Loving #6! I couldn't seem to make the rings work. I love the way you positioned them!

Kevin

Thanks! The lights on #3 are actually icicle lights. We ran them across my background and stand twice (once over, down, and then back over) and left them on for a while to let them warm up. The wires extend once they are warmed. I was surprised when I saw the result.

And on the selective color...I wasn't that crazy about it either. I prefered it in total black and white. But, they specifically asked for the selective color.

I also wish I could take credit for #6, but that was the wife's positioning. That, and Amelia was actually awake so she was moving around a bit. This was the best position of the bunch.

Dec 26, 2013 at 01:22 PM

yogi3939
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

That is one adorable baby and you captured her well. All of your shots are creative and well executed. I do like the selective color one. I guess it is just a personal preference; some will like it and some won't.

My personal favorites (it was a difficult choice) are #1 and #2 just because I like a lot of color in a shot and the Christmas present theme is very cute.

Dec 26, 2013 at 03:17 PM

bayvillian
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

overall good framing and composition, but lighting and pp are lacking. What type of lighting setup are you using? All you need is one off camera light, when I first started I was using multiple lights and its not necessary at all. Good start!

Dec 26, 2013 at 04:05 PM

cmcfalls
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

bayvillian wrote:
overall good framing and composition, but lighting and pp are lacking. What type of lighting setup are you using? All you need is one off camera light, when I first started I was using multiple lights and its not necessary at all. Good start!

I have shot with strobes only once (the maternity session for the same baby) before this session and had a difficult time. I was having a hard time "seeing the light" so to speak and had to adjust a lot (shadows, background not being lit, etd). It was frustrating.

With the baby I knew I might only get one or two shots per pose and had to work quickly. I used what natural light I could, but it was a very dark and dreary day. So I went with a continuous light setup. One (or two depending on the shot) 105W 5000K fluorescents with shoot through umbrellas to diffuse.

They look darker when I posted them to flickr and 500px than they did in Lightroom. Perhaps I need to calibrate my monitor for that?

You mentioned pp is lacking as well. Could you be more descriptive? In reference to what areas specifically?

Thanks for the feedback!

Dec 26, 2013 at 04:23 PM

bayvillian
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

yes definitely calibrate everything. In regards to processing the baby looks artificial and plasticky in some photos, maybe do less softening of the skin or try a different technique. Try making the skin tones more even as well (mostly take some of the reds out). An important part of newborn photography is editing as their skin is not usually the best, especially on babies with lighter skin tones. When I started out, I practiced lighting at home. Just grab anything, maybe an orange and move the light around to see how it hits it and where the shadows lay. It took me some time to get flash down, then it took me some time to start mixing flash with ambient properly. You will get there!

-A side note, just purchase a cheap light like an alien bee, a pair of pocket wizards, and a softbox and you will be set.
Continuos lighting will still give you blur and will not stop motion like a flash or strobe.

Dec 26, 2013 at 04:53 PM

friscoron
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

I really like these shots, and I completely disagree with the need to add strobes to these shots. However, I do agree that they're a stop or two underexposed for what I like to see. But that can easily be fixed with a couple of Photoshop tweaks. Aside from No. 3, I'd really love to see these lightened up with post-processing. If you lightened every one of them to the degree of No. 3, I think you'd have a killer set. But that's just me wanting to see them processed in my style, and you might be perfectly good the way they are. Great job! Thanks for sharing. Keep 'em coming.

Dec 26, 2013 at 05:15 PM

bayvillian
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

why not add strobes?

Dec 26, 2013 at 05:47 PM

friscoron
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

bayvillian wrote:
why not add strobes?

If you're asking me, I've got plenty of strobes and I really like using them. But these shots seemed to have really nice ambient light -- so why add strobes?

But that's just my opinion based on my style of shooting. I don't mean to say someone would be wrong to use strobes. Someone might use strobes for this very shoot and produce fantastic shots. But for me, when there's plenty of natural light, I prefer to work with that. Nothing more than that.

Dec 26, 2013 at 05:58 PM

bayvillian
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

yes, I was asking you. I just thought you had a specific reason why? Also, not trying to have this come off as rude. I know it's easy to misinterpret tone on the web lol.

Dec 26, 2013 at 06:01 PM

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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

If you have a choice where to put your light I would usually choose to place it at the head end of the baby, not the foot end. I appears more natural that way.

Dec 26, 2013 at 10:29 PM

cmcfalls
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

bayvillian wrote:
yes definitely calibrate everything. In regards to processing the baby looks artificial and plasticky in some photos, maybe do less softening of the skin or try a different technique. Try making the skin tones more even as well (mostly take some of the reds out). An important part of newborn photography is editing as their skin is not usually the best, especially on babies with lighter skin tones. When I started out, I practiced lighting at home. Just grab anything, maybe an orange and move the light around to see how it hits it and where the shadows lay. It...Show more →

I'll have to play around with the post processing. I am still learning Lightroom as well, so I know there is a lot of room for improvement.

And as far as strobes go, I know continuous lighting will not freeze motion like a strobe will, but I figured that the baby shouldn't be moving during the shots, so there wasn't really a need for strobes.

I went back and forth on it; continuous or strobes. I even read some articles on it to get an idea of what others did. Seem like the most common thought was to use natural light. The house just didn't lend itself to natural light, and it was rainy and dark bad overcast outside anyway. I just figured the continuous lighting was closest to natural as I would get.

Thanks again for all the comments and feedback from everyone!

Dec 27, 2013 at 09:38 AM

cmcfalls
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

jackhopkins wrote:
If you have a choice where to put your light I would usually choose to place it at the head end of the baby, not the foot end. I appears more natural that way.

I'll add this to my lessons learned. Had not even thought of this one.

Dec 27, 2013 at 09:39 AM

cmcfalls
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · My first newborn session. C&C welcome.

friscoron wrote:
I really like these shots, and I completely disagree with the need to add strobes to these shots. However, I do agree that they're a stop or two underexposed for what I like to see. But that can easily be fixed with a couple of Photoshop tweaks. Aside from No. 3, I'd really love to see these lightened up with post-processing. If you lightened every one of them to the degree of No. 3, I think you'd have a killer set. But that's just me wanting to see them processed in my style, and you might be perfectly good the...Show more →

They are showing as very underexposed here and on flickr. But when I view them within Lightroom, and even the jpegs after exporting them, they look fine. I'm not sure what the issue is. When I bump up the exposure in Lightroom they begin to look overexposed. Again, I go back to calibration. I'm going to invest in a spyder calibration tool and see if that helps anything.

Dec 27, 2013 at 09:41 AM


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