This is a part of a series called 101 tips to make you a better photographer.

Tip #7 of 101: Tips to take photos of newborn babies

Ever since I was blessed with a baby boy three months ago, baby photos have become an obsession.

Here are some photos of my beautiful son (who is now 3 months old) and lessons that I learned in the process of capturing them…

1. Shoot Low

Bend down and try to have the camera at the eye level of the baby. That way, you can see the baby from the level from which he sees the world

2. Shoot from above

Take a few snaps of the baby from vertically above him. This is something that we do not see in our baby daily. Usually it will result is some very interesting photos.

3. Focus on the eyes

Like all portraits, your photos will appear very sharp if the eye of the baby is in focus.

4. Focus on specific body parts

Almost everything about the babies is cute. Photos are specific body parts like palms, feet etc trigger very cute memories later.

5. Shoot extreme closeups

Have very tight crops of the photos i.e. focus on only the eyes, palms, feet etc. Avoid all the clutter. Highlight some specific part of their body.

6. Shoot Simple (Clutterless photo)

Watch very carefully what is coming in the frame of your photo. Avoid the colorful toys, wires of your laptop, the feeding bottle, your cousin’s hand etc.
Use a large light colored towel or a plain quilt as a backdrop and avoid everything else.

The more things you include in your photo, the less attention your baby gets in it.

7. The less clothes your baby has, the better your baby looks.

First make your room warm and then remove all the clothes of the baby.
Your baby has beautiful folds and lines and the texture of its skin is lovely.
The babies look like fairies when they are peacefully sleeping without clothes.

Don’t take my word for it, try it out yourself.

8. Switch off the flash.

Newborns have extremely delicate eyes. Any sudden burst of light can damage them (sometimes permanently).
So switch off the flash of your camera, and use the available lights.

Move the baby to a well lit location e.g. your balcony or your bedroom window and then take photos.

9. Use fast shutter speeds, large aperture (smaller f/number) and high ISO

Unless the babies are sleeping, they are in perpetual motion. It makes sense to have the fastest shutter speed.
Here is the technical part. Instead of switching to Shutter Priority mode, and setting an appropriate shutter speed, I have found that the best way to achieve it is to switch to Apperture Priority Mode (AV), set the aperture to the smallest number (i.e. the largest aperture size) and then go on increasing the ISO till you get the desired shutter speed i.e. the photos do not appear blurred due to the movement of the baby.

Added advantage is that the large aperture blurs out the distracting background too.

Ideally shoot photos when they are sleeping. It will make your photo shoot very simple and quick.

10. Try Black and White

When you shoot photos at high ISO, one of the problems that you will face will be that of digital noise i.e. your photos will have lots of grains on it.
Instead of trying to remove the grains, try to convert the photo to black and white.

The noise will add to the mood of the photo.

Black and white also has the added advantage of removing all the color distractions and showing the pure form of the baby.

While converting to black and white, do not convert it into grayscale. In photoshop use the Adjustment Layer called Black and White and use a preset called “Maximum White” or “High Contrast Red”.
I have found that they produce the best black and whites for babies.

BONUS TIP: Delete 60% of the photos that you take

Your baby, like all newborns, is ultra super mega adorable. It is very easy to find that soon you will have a few hundred photos of the baby and it will look equally adorable in all of them.
But trust me, when you show those photos to your friends, they will start getting bored after the 10th photo and by the time you reach photo number 132, they will be fast asleep.

So, the idea is that after deleting all the photos that are technically bad e.g. photos which are out of focus, or blurred or badly composed, delete 60% of all the photos. Find out which photos are the best among the lot and only keep them.

The idea is to keep around 20 to 30 photos at the end

Now that you have selected the best photos, delete 20% more
Now that you have around 20 to 30 photos, go through all of them once again and delete 5 to 10 more photos.

I usually try to not keep more than 15 photos of any photo shoot.

If I need more photos, I setup another photoshoot another time, but from each photoshoot, I have around 10 photos only.

That is it for today.

In the next post, I will talk about taking panorama shots i.e. how to get photos of more mega-pixel from a small mega-pixel camera

My last tip was:  Tip#6 of 101 Motivation for photography - build a photo blog using free tools

List of all the tips: 101 tips to make you a better photographer

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If you have any questions or want to share your photos, post them in the comments section below.

Take care,
Gunjan