Babies!

When photographing a baby, most parents want you to capture a moment when their sweet child at his/her best, meaning sleeping, smiling and just generally being calm.  Sounds easy right? This is a photo of the lovely Sophia looking like she is as calm as a mini Buddha in her mother's arms.    Most babies have a very short time limit of patience so usually the best photo happens within the first few minutes of shooting.  I wanted her to be as naked as the day she was born so we had to lose the diaper which of course opened up a whole realm of possibilities.  Soon, little Sophia was doing her best impression of a fountain.  Good thing my back drop was paper and all I had to do was cut off the newly slightly damp piece of paper.  I am not sure mom was as easily made dry though.      

I had this idea that I wanted it to look like she was floating in a black back ground so I asked the parents to wear black.  Babies have such lovely pudgy little folds in their skin so I wanted to accentuate those features by using one very directional light, camera left with a chimera and no fill light.  I set a fairly hard light from the right and slightly behind to outline her head.  There was no room for an overall rim light as the mother was holding Sophia which would block any light from behind.  Then the challenge was to block light from spilling onto mom which was done by placing 2 flags.  This made the lighting so specific that the subject had little more than an inch to move to stay in my desired lighting. Sure tell that to a baby!!!