Just Call Me...THE BABY WHISPERER

Ok, so maybe that's a stretch, BUT... guess what I've been up to this past week?

I'll give you a hint:

Wait. 

I just realized what that sounded like.

To clarify: I have NOT been up to baby-making the past few days. [John, not a WORD.]

Er.

I have, however, been photographing a new baby: namely little Ellie, the new resident of the cherry blossom nursery and daughter of our friends Ray & Julianne. When I heard they weren't getting professional pictures done until Ellie was several weeks old, I begged them to let me practice taking some newborn shots for fun. Happily they've been extremely tolerant, since not only have I never photographed a baby before, I've never photographed ANYONE before. (Well, nothing besides snapshots at outings, anyway.) So after three 4-hour sessions and hundreds of photos, here are a few of my favorites:

 Can't decide which version I prefer on this one - but I think I lean towards the full color.

You can probably tell I've just figured out how to colorize things in Photoshop, too, huh?  (SO FUN.)

I got so many great shots in this little basket. I also learned how to pose baby fingers and hands and arms. Considering this was the most contact I've had with a baby in, well, ever, that was another first.

All of my backdrops were comprised of a sheet or blanket clipped to the back of two chairs and draped over the floor.  For these next shots John & I bought a few yards of stretch velvet:

This session was on Saturday, so Ray (the dad) was there for this shot and also for some awesome father/daughter poses:

Oh! And when we couldn't find a ruffly diaper cover at the last minute, I bought some eyelet lace at JoAnn's & attached several rows to the back of a plain one. I can't sew a straight line to save my life, but I did it! Isn't it cute? (I know most newborn shots are done with the baby naked, but Julianne and I just weren't up for that kind of explosive challenge.)

Amazing what a difference a few filters can make. Again, I can't decide between this and the more gritty black & white version. (Fun fact: Ray is very ticklish, so any time Ellie would move he'd start cracking up, which would make her move more, which make him laugh more...and so on.)

Ellie was 10 to 12 days old in these shots - a tad older than most newborns in pro photos, apparently - and she still has her umbilical doo-dad on her belly button. We did our best to cover or hide it, but for this shot I had to 'shop it out. How'd I do? :/

Other than removing that and darkening the blacks/upping the contrast, this photo is pretty much how it came off the camera.

It's always fun to try something new, and I had an absolute blast playing photographer. Thanks again to Ray & Julianne, and to you guys for letting me share the girliness! Hope you liked it!


Boring Technical Stuff:

For lighting we just set up in front of a big window around 2PM, and then I occasionally had John hold a reflector to aim the sunlight. (The reflectors are cheap pop-ups you can find on ebay.) I used my new Canon 7D with a Sigma 17-50 lens for all the shots, and then adjusted everything in either iPhoto, PhotoShop, or both.

I spent a few hours online researching newborn poses, and then saved a folder of my favorites on my laptop to reference during the shoots. This article on newborn photography tips was also extremely helpful, especially in explaining how to pose a newborn.


And finally, John tells me if I don't include this shot, he'll edit this post while I'm asleep and add it in himself. So, here's me cosplaying as a baby photographer:

Now the world has seen my glowing white calves. Happy, John?