Newborn Fauxtography Basics

Perhaps one of the easiest facets of good fauxtography is taking pictures of babies. If your a mom, then this is perfect because you can take pictures of your own kids!! Some people think that being a baby photographer is hard work and you have to have 2-4 hours set aside for a session, but this is just ridiculous! Babies are very compliant and flexible so you should only need to have a half hour max in order to get good photos. I thought I'd try to copy this photo I found online by N a Wink Photography. I thought this should be easy enough to do... after all, you just have to place the baby in something and snap away!!

This look easy enough, eh?

So I found a friend that had a baby. He was only about 10 days old. Apparently this is a good age for photographing newborns, but in my experience, you can do newborn photos until about 3 months old. They are still newborn looking, just a big bigger.

Here's my version. Selective colouring is awesome!

Here's what I did to make this photo awesome.

1. Grab something to put the baby in. My daughter's baby doll crib worked great!
2. Wrap something around the baby. I just used the receiving blanket in his carseat.
3. Gently place the baby in the prop.
4. Interesting backgrounds make for an artistic looking photograph. I carefully selected this place because of the rug and hardwood flooring. I thought it made an eye-appealing contrast of patterns.

I also used the selective colouring on the baby's soother, just to make it more visually intriguing. 

Next, I did some Photoshop/Picasa magic. Since I just use the kit lens, it doesn't give me that blurry look.. I can't remember what its called.. (something that sounds like bookieh)??

Added fake blur in Picasa (Free program) and white vignette

Since I didn't have any studio lighting or natural light, I just used the Photoshop
lighting effect filter to make the lighting different.

Anyways, I'm really happy with my end result. I only charged the mom $25 and gave her the disc with all the original photos on it. She seemed pretty happy and I also gave her a $25 Walmart photo card so she can get all her prints developed! 

I still don't understand why all those high-end photographers charge and arm and a leg for pictures.. I mean, it only took me a few hours to edit all 100 pictures and I only charged $25 for my time... and I'm still alive, eh! Anyways, I will save my pricing strategies for another post. 

Have a great day everyone!

Freida