Photos Upon Photos

 

Despite both kids being sick and with fevers, I managed to get this shot today!  Wish Elliot were smiling, but otherwise I love it.  



I volunteered to take photos for all the moms in my Monday Playgroup.  So I've been taking lots of photos lately.  It's really helpful to have other subjects to practice on.



Yesterday I shot baby Julia.  She's almost exactly the same age as Elliot.  Isn't she beautiful?



I will admit that after my initial "tummy time" pose didn't work out, I was sort of stumped.   Doesn't she look sad (above)? 



I quickly had mom pick her back up to keep her happy, and we tried every different pose I could think of.  Mom had brought several outfits, so that was helpful. 



We went from one to the next and didn't spend much time trying to make a pose work if it didn't from the get go.



I've been working on backlighting.  One of my favorite wedding photos is back-lit, and I never thought anything about it.  But actually it's quite difficult to shoot a well-exposed subject in front of a light background.



This one has quite a bit of haze, but it's an improvement over my first few attempts.  I tried this shot both in front of my front door (with a moderate amount of light coming in from the sky tubes in the living room) and again in front of my dining room window (with almost no light in the dining room).



After a lot of editing (including some valiant recovery in CameraRaw), my end result led me to this conclusion: I think it's better to shoot a back-lit subject with lots of light in front of them... unless you want a lot of noise from the obligatorily high ISO necessary in such low light.  Or unless you want a a silhouette. 



I think she looks like a doll.  This shot (above) might have been better if there were two adults holding Julia's hands.  But I didn't have two adults - I just had mom.  Any ideas for this situation?



The photo gods looked kindly upon me during this shoot.  Baby Julia fell into a sound sleep, and we were able to position her for a couple cute shots.  I didn't even have the heater going or anything.

 

One helpful piece of advice I read recently is to just keep moving.  Even if you think nothing  good will come of it, try a different angle.  



I think it's good advice.