Children’s Photo Shoot

Balance Experience and Expectations

Being a photography enthusiast bring enthusiasm. It is easy to carried away with grandiose plans, especially when you see those cute child photography ideas on the internet. The result is often either failure and frustration, aka a “pinterest fail”, or wasting hours learning how to do something for one photo. For example, although we swaddled our daughter, I found it almost impossible to do a newborn wrap at my first newborn session. I was nervous and felt the pressure of the parents watching me. The result was me just throwing fabric over the baby. Literally doing nothing would have been better.

Instead, start out with reasonable expectations and learn how to do basic shots, then build on over time. If you’re just starting out or doing your own child’s newborn photograph, start with simple overhead shots of them in baskets or other receptacles. Focus on proper lighting, exposure, and focus, and less on advanced poses or techniques.

Create a set list

When you’re working with a client, you want to go in with a plan of attack. When you’re shooting your own child, it’s easy to let your creativity and Pinterest searches get away with you. If you don’t edit yourself, suddenly you have 15 different clothing and set changes. Choose three to five colors for a pallet before hand. Consider if you and your clients home is decorated in cool, warm, or neutral tones. Add in highlight and low light colors throughout for “pop”. Create a cohesive and varied picture list before hand. For example, balance out wrapped pictures in blue tones with prop photos in grey tones. Don’t recreate the same picture four times using slightly different colors or poses – make each photo count so you or the client have choices.