Baby Photography Hints & Tips

We often see beautiful baby photo’s taken at home that when combined with a border, make fantastic and professional looking photo cards.  However we also get asked about how to take a good photo of a young baby, a job that isn’t an easy one at the best of times.  To help you out, we’ve put together the following hints and tips on how to take a fantastic, professional baby photo at home.

It’s easy to set up a simple home-made photo studio right in your house, and doing a ‘photo shoot’ for your baby thank you or birth announcement cards. 

Set up your camera

-  Turn the date stamp OFF - dates can ruin a great photo
-  Set the camera to the highest resolution, so images are a good quality for printing. We recommend
   using images at least 500 kb in size
-  Make sure the battery is fully charged
-  Start with a clear memory stick so you can take plenty of photos!

Set up your photo studio

-  Do it in the day time so you have plenty of natural light, open your curtains, use non-florescent lights
   if necessary (lamps)
-  Place a solid coloured sheet or blanket on the floor (white is great)
-  If your floor is hard, put an additional soft blanket on the floor first, then place your solid coloured
   blanket on top so the baby is comfortable
-  Look through your camera at the blanket, make sure you can't see furniture, toys or any clutter
   that may be seen in a photo

Get your baby ready

-  First and foremost, choose an appropriate time for the baby photo shoot: babies tend to be in a
   better mood after a feeding or nap
-  Plain clothes make the best choice for photos, patterns and strong colours can be distracting.
   Straight out of a bath with a white towel can be a nice simple option
-  Make sure your babies face is clean, doesn't have quite the same look seeing a beautiful baby
   with a boogie!
-  If your baby gets fussy, take a break and try again in a few hours

Take the pictures!

-  Get above the baby and point your camera downwards
-  Make sure the only things you can see in the shot are the baby and the blanket, avoid
   cluttering the photo with lots of stuff (although a favourite toy can be nice)
-  Take lots of pictures - that way you can keep the great one's and delete the others

YOU CAN DO IT!!!

	DO !		DON'T !
Place your baby on a plain background		Avoid patterns and backgrounds that can take away from your babies sweet face
Make sure your plain background covers all the baby		Don't let part of your baby overlap the background
Ensure there is plenty of room around your baby for a full body photo		Don't cut off important features of your baby in the photo!
Watch your lighting, refer above for lighting tips		Using a dark photo will result in a dark image on your cards