Sebastian’s Baby Portraits Spring 2011 from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

Sebastian’s baby portrait were taken in his home in Chandler, Arizona by Jared Platt. Toward the end of the slideshow you will see that we went to the local Lowes hardware store for a children’s activity where Sebastian’s dad built a very fine pinball machine, while Sebastian banged on a stack of boards with a small hammer.

Here are a few of my favorite images from Sebastian’s baby portrait session…

I love this shot.  Sebastian doesn’t know what the measuring ruler is, but he sure looks like he’s excited to grow up big and tall, which will not take long.  The kid is growing like a weed.  He’s bigger than my daughter and only half her age.  He’s a heavy little guy too.  Made of bricks!

I love the toys that Karen and Tom have around the house.  They are all cool photogenic toys, made of wood with unique design, etc.  You can see the little wood camera in the bottom left corner, which interestingly enough, has a little block of wood on the back to mimic the digital LCD screen.

This next set of shots makes me laugh.  We took a shot of Sebastian with this big bear before on a previous shoot, so we did it again.  It will end up being the measuring stick for his growth.  But after a few shots, the bear kept falling down.  We would put it back up again and it would fall down.  At one point it fell and I told everyone to leave it alone…

Because it looked like it was dead.  It almost looked like a crime scene.  I suppose I have a dark sense of humor, but you have to admit, this shot is kind of funny.

And then I had to just take the crime scene photo of just the bear.

I love the name on the wall.  Sebastian was the happiest he had been the entire shoot when we put him in his crib.  He had a blast.

After the shoot in the home, we went to a children’s building activity at Lowes hardware store.  It was super fun.  Just a quick comparison between my daughter and Sebastian.  She is one year old.  He is 6 months.  He is a big fella.  Sebastian likes to beat on the boards with his little hammer which his dad builds his toy.

My wife and kids came as well.  It was a fun activity.  Although my oldest hit his thumb with the hammer… initiation into boyhood.

Tom did a great job on his pinball machine.  You can see he got a certificate of completion as well, but his goggles were a bit small.

And Karen brought he camera along as well.  I seem to attract clients who are very interested in photography itself.  I take that as a compliment.  I love that many of my clients either love looking at photography, or love pursuing photography as amateurs.

I would also be remise if I didn’t mention that we also had waffles together the morning.  It was a great morning.  A photo shoot, something fun for the kids to do and my favorite breakfast… waffles with fruit and glazed pecans.  Mmmm mmm mmm…

You have to have glazed pecans on your waffles.  You have to.

It was a great morning.  A great photo shoot.  And always fun to be around the Farmers.

Photography: Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Location: Chandler, Arizona

Music: Mindy Gledhill, courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

I have the greatest respect for multiple birth parents.  One baby is life altering.  Two must rock your world.

Like parenting twins, photographing them is also exponentially challenging.   Fortunately, I think my photographic style gives me an advantage in the challange.  Because I am interested in real life, I love a photograph of a crying baby as much as I do a smiling baby, and I am not consumed with getting a pre-determined shot that may not come, I am liberated to simply create and enjoy the challenge.

Of course, parents, will generaly stress out about the photoshoot because they have paid for my time and have certain pre-conceved notions about what a baby portrait should look like and what kind of shot they want to get.  But, my advice to every parent, weather they are hiring me, or just trying to photograph their own children, is to simply go with the flow.  Never force the photograph, and let it become what it will.

A twins infant portrait is the perfect laboratory to prove this hypothesis.  In this case, I arrived at the home in the late evening and the mother and father know me and trusted what I was doing, so there wasn’t a lot of stress over the photos.  Of course, this is crucial to the success of the shoot.  If mom is stressed, baby will be stressed.

The first thing I tell parents is that we are going to keep shooting and get lots of great images and that babies are cute, no matter what they are doing, so relax and let’s just have fun, even if the children are crying.  The other thing that I do to maintain the relaxed atmosphere is to plan enough time for the photo shoot.  If the baby needs to eat, then we need to take a little break and I can take photos of the babies toys or talk with dad.  Rushing the parents or the baby, will only end in failure.

With plenty of time and a relaxed mom and dad, the stage is set for a successful photo-shoot, but the most important element is the understanding that I am there to photograph children as they really are, smiling or crying, and that gives me the freedom to concentrate on the photographs that I am making.

Some people are not comfortable with this concept and want to control the final outcome, and there are some very good photo factories that are perfect for that.  A parent can go to the mall and choose from the catalog of props and sets and have a photograph of their child in a chefs hat in a cooking pot and they will walk out with the print they saw in the catalog, with their child in the pot rather than the model baby.  It is something akin to keeping buying a frame at the store and pasting your kids faces over the happy people in the stock photo that came with the frame.  It is very predictable and the people who work at these photo factories know the menu and they know the recipe for this shot and that.  It is predicable and safe and there is nothing wrong with that.  But the parents who come to me for portraits are interested in something special and unique to immortalize their child.  They want something real, something that means more than just a cute portrait.

Coming into the home, allows the child to be photographed in a unique environment that is filled with memories and spirit and as I use this natural surrounding, the child is placed at ease and more importantly, nothing is a prop, because everything has meaning.  And by discarding those pre-conceved shots and just taking things as they come, we are all open to letting things happen and enjoying the experience.  And we still end up with some of those cute traditional photographs, but without the stress.  However, I will always maintain that the less planned images are always the best.

It certainly is not a predictable way to photograph a child, but children aren’t predictable anyway and in the end, no one can doubt the outcome.  The images are full of emotion, humor and joy and are extraordinary portraits that will be cherished forever.

Of course, you can judge the results for yourself.

I just finished adjusting and editing a new set of infant portraits.  Our little model was a very pleasant baby.  I have had a few very pleasant baby models lately, perhaps it is summer babies?  Anyway, this photo session was a joy.  Enjoy the slide show and the example photos below.

We did some documentary style stuff as well as a few set up shots in around the house.  When I shoot this way, we use little or no flash (preferably no flash if I can get away with it).  In this instance, we are using the window light and the room light, nothing more and shooting at a high ISO with a 2.8 aperture to allow for as much light as possible and as a bonus, we get that shallow depth of field which really puts the focus on those beautiful baby eyes.

I love this next series.  Big brother is trying to get in on the action.  I see this in my kids all the time.  Big brother always wants to give the baby a hug or a kiss.  This set of three images deserves to be seen together.

And now for some portraits.  This one turned out wonderfully.  I was so happy with the lighting on it.  Let me remind you that this is in the client’s home.  You don’t need a studio to shoot this, in fact, everyone is more comfortable in their own home (assuming they like their home).  I love how the baby and dad emerge from the dark background and the baby’s hands are perfectly placed.  Way to go dad!  And then the baby went pee all over him…  But I think he’ll agree, it was worth it… I know mom will.

This is a one week old baby.  She had a lot of strength.  This was all her, with no heroics and quite a developed little grin too.

This is one of my favorite shots from the infant portrait session.  It is so soft and full of brightness and warmth.  Depth is a magnificent thing in a photograph.

The baby cried one time.  I love photographing a crying baby.  A lot of parents worry when their child cries of fusses during a portrait session.  They fuss and stress, which tends to stress the child even more and the apologize profusely to me.  I have to remind people that I am attempting to capture the personality of their child, their expressions and mannerisms.  When they cry, that is a great photograph too.  In fact, I love looking back at the pouty photos of my children.  Those pouts and sour faces are a part of their personality.  Of course with this little baby, I worried she might never realy give me a good cry, but she got one in for me and I was ready to capture it.

There is a lot of warmth in this image which is not from the lighting at the scene, in fact the lighting was very cool.  The daylight outside was very blue as was the flash I was bouncing into the ceiling.  All of the warmth is added in Adobe Lightroom in post production.  Most of these images were not ever brought into Photoshop.  For those of you who are interested in the technical side of this, I do not simply increase the temperature to get warmth in my photos, that does not look real and often times will over saturate the warmer tones in the image.  Instead, we are adding a image toner in the highlights and the shadows.  This creates a more realistic feeling of warmth.  I will be posting a lesson on this technique on my Lightroom Podcast on iTunes next week, so if you are interested, go subscribe.

This was a perfect dresser for a little baby portrait.  I love all of the white in the shot, it helps the little toys and decorations, like that teddy bear.  It is a very geometrical shot.  I am generally much more prone to angling my frames in strange ways, but when geometry gets involved I work very hard to make sure I have the angles very square to the camera.  In a small room, though, this becomes difficult, because wide angle lenses distort the edges of the frame and straight lines become a bit bowed.  There are two solutions to this: 1. buy or rent a very expensive rectilinear lens or 2. fix it in post by negating the warp in Photoshop. — OR — the third option, which does not require Photoshop at all and is almost completely automatic.  I choose the third option.  All of my shots are automatically adjusted for lens distortion based on the camera and lens combination I am using.  I can’t believe it is possible to do it, but it is… look at the results, they are nothing short of miraculous.  Oh, what is the third option?  Ligthroom.  This technology is also available in the latest camera raw Photoshop CS5 as well.  Having this technology available has changed my imagery quite a bit.  I would never have taken the time to go into each image in Photoshop to negate the lens distortion, and now I don’t have to.  Have you figured out that I prefer to stay out of photoshop as much as possible?

As much as I like the first version, I do enjoy the more simplified version, the close-up.  It has a much more graphic design to it.

On the little shelf above the dresser was a small suitcase, which also made a good little prop for her to sit in.  I always look for things in the house I can use as props and backdrops.  I try not to rely on bringing props with me and although it makes for a more challenging job, the portraits turn out to be far more interesting, because it is the child’s natural surroundings.  Natural props in the photos are things that will mean far more to the parents in years to come than some cute prop in a studio.  In this case, she will probably have this bear for years too come.  I love the way she is holding the bear’s ribbon.  I did need to run this one through Photoshop because mom was holding the baby up, so her arm had to be removed from the shot.

And her comes big brother with an Oreo Cookie.

Little feet, big hands.  Everything about an infant is so perfect.  They are perfect little miracles.

In case you didn’t know, we received a new baby into our family last week.  She is a beautiful and healthy little girl.  Both mother and daughter are doing well.  We have been very blessed.  She is already sleeping through most of the night and has been a joy to us.  I am thrilled to have her join our little family.

A little Tech Talk:

During an infant portrait, it is important to keep in mind that flashes and loud camera equipment can interfere with the portrait session itself. The equipment matters to the point that it does not interfere with the portrait session.

I shot all of these infant portraits with the Canon 1D Mark IV, a pro level camera, that offers an incredible 12800 ISO, which allows for very low light photography.  This ability was absolutely invaluable as I photographed our new little baby.  I hate using a flash during an infant portrait session and especially during the documentation process at the hospital.  It is just a bad idea to use a flash.  So shooting at a high ISO with a fast lens is the right way to photograph an infant.

In addition to the high ISO, one other invaluable option on the new Mark IV is the silent shutter mode.  Those who shoot with smaller, consumer or pro-summer cameras will find that the sound of the shutter is not too loud to begin with, still perhaps enough to wake the baby, but not too abrasive.  However, pro camera bodies have much more durable shutters and they make a lot more noise when they fire.  This is not good for weddings or infant portraits.  If you want the baby to continue sleeping, you can’t start snapping a loud shutter a few feet from her face.  And even when she’s awake, that shutter can startle her.  But the ever so quiet “silent” mode on the Mark IV work nicely.  It softens the noise made by the shutter movement by slowing down the movement of the shutter and by separating out the two movements of the shutter.  Pushing the shutter release button trips the shutter to expose the chip, but the shutter reset movement only occurs after you release the shutter release button.  It is a fairly ingenious system and helps to mitigate the noise coming from the camera.

While the baby was sleeping, I put the camera in Silent mode and when I was ready for her to wake up, I took it out of Silent mode and sure enough, she started to stir as a result of the sharp noise from the shutter on the camera.  So the noisy shutter turned out to be useful as well.

If you have shot with the 1D Mark III, you will have used this feature as well.  They seem to have improved it in this model.  It feels even quieter.  Still not anything like a leica and the 50D and other pro-summer models are just as quiet in normal mode as the 1D M IV is in silent mode, but their shutters are not nearly as durable.