Over the weekend I took some photos of my friends and there new born baby Joshua. It was the first photography "shoot" I'd done outside of my own immediate family, and with the confidence I'd gained from doing plenty of reading on the net, and the knowledge that I can always rescue photos in Photoshop I set out to capture images of this tiny baby forever.

The tips below are what I think really helped me out as a first timer, and are therefore aimed at photographers in a similar situation.

1) Be Patient

Babies scream and squirm a lot. Fact. I was at the shoot for a little over 2 hours, and a good 50% of that time was spent crying. Just chill, the parents will be stressed enough without having you breathing down there necks and getting all stroppy.
Relax; the baby, the parents and you will perform much better in a calm, quiet environment.

2) Plan the shoot with the parents

Talk to the parents about any particular photos they want to capture and the best time to do the shoot as you'll want the baby at there most placid. Before you arrive make sure you have a good idea of the photos you want to take, search through Flickr or your favourite site and find images that you like. Look at the angles, the poses and the lighting used, this will give you a great starting point to expand and improve upon.

3) It's all about lighting

Babies are soft and smooth skinned, I'm sure that you and the parents will want to capture this. The ideal lighting (in my opionion) would be a soft even light. Obviously this depends on the mood of the photos you want to capture, nothing spoils a nice photo like a harsh shadow across someones face.
I have a flash with an umbrella and a few other bits of equipment to achieve this, however a few lights bounced off the ceiling can do a pretty good job too.
Check out Strobist for a fantastic resource on all kinds of lighting setups and ideas.

4) Keep it simple

The best baby photos are the ones of the baby, I know this sounds simple but you need to take care to minimise "noise" in photos, you don't want lots of props or a busy background. The simpler the better.
I use a black or white bed sheet held up between 2 lighting stands as my backdrops, they're cheap, readily available and come in every colour you can think of.

5) Boost the parents confidence

Give loads of feedback, then give some more. Little bits of advice like "move that arm down a bit", "you're doing great", "that's a really nice shot" will relax your clients and make them feel like they are doing a good job. Don't be afraid to show them the pictures you've just taken, people really like to see what's going on behind the camera too!

While I'm sure there are a million other points worth while putting in here, I think these are the points that I needed most. Keep everyone smiling with a positive atmosphere, they'll be happier, there will be better results, and you'll want to do it all over again!

"Aaaargh"

It's 5 to midnight and I'm still yet to take an interesting photo of the day for my 365 gallery, when I say an interesting photo, I mean it in the sense of somebody who has lived in a box for any length of time and has been oblivious to the invention of the internet, tv or any other form of mainstream entertainment would find it interesting.
You'll then see me quickly run around the house trying to find something vaguely worth taking a photo of, normally a picture of my room or an attempt to get the kids to do something random.

Luckily this doesn't happen all that often, although more often than I'd like. Back when I started my 365 Gallery in 2006 I never really expected it to last too long but over the last 18 or so months It has changed my life significantly.

So getting to the point, if there ever was a point, I'm now proud to say that the website has been relaunched and rebranded into my current website as there seems no hope of me stopping it in the forseeable future.

"Yay" I hear you all cry! but wait, there's more..

You can now add comments! Exciting stuff eh, not to mention bigger pictures, faster downloads and 24/7 access, even when I've got half a dozen torrents on the go ;-)

So please go take a look over at http://scrivna.com/365/ and while you're at it subscribe to the RSS Feed

Love you all!

So thought i'd put together a compilation of my 365 project so far.. and here it is!

Oh yeah! oh yeah! it's my birthday, oh yeah!.... ok well its not my birthday, but this photo has got to number 92! in Flickr's explore... my highest entry to date. Lets celebrate homies!

View my photostream for more fun and games!


UPDATE: As of now (Mar 27th 12:45) it is in position #47.
Is it sad that i'm totally addicted to this now?

UPDATE: (Mar 27th 16:35) Number 25!!!! Wooooooo
UPDATE: So it peaked at #11, that's gunna take some beating.

Love you!

Woo! Another photo in Fickr's explore, it's currently sitting at position #291 which is amazing, i'm so happy!

Now both pictures I've had in explore contain some aspect of female nudity. I think this goes a fair way to proving that sex sells.

Wow! This photo is my first to be featured on Flickr's daily Explore page, basically they work out the 500 most interesting photos of that day and you can browse them on there website.

This photo came a brilliant 416th! Its a poo score but I don't care! This is the 1st time i'm on the list and i'm proud of it!
So please, view my photostream, hope you enjoy!

Update: It got to 397! Now its been dropped, oh the dizzying highs the crushing lows!

Those of you that have the great fortune of putting up with my random ideas will know that of late i've been playing around with a washing up bowl, various items of tupperware and lots of tin foil... I've been making a DIY Ring Light, you can see the making and a few sample pictures over at Gallericious or on my flickr page. And yes, I know this picture to the right is well sexy!

So I havn't posted much in the last few weeks and loads has been going on. I've had a few nice packages in the post from ebay bringing me brand new toys.. A flash softbox, a new 50mm lens and wireless flash triggers that are a bit poo but only cost £20.
I've also booked yet another holiday, this time to the Caribbean island of Antigua... its gunna be awesome! Cant wait!

Well, until next time... Please don't have nightmares!

Woohoo! My new flash finally arrived today.

I bought the Canon Speedlite 430EX off of Amazon for £160 in the end, what can i say... it's fab! Glad i spent the extra bit to get the official canon one rather than one of the cheaper options.

Andy also leant me his "Nifty 50" fixed lens today, which this photo was taken with. The flash was bounced off of the wall to camera left with a bit of ambient light from directly behind camera.. i'm happy with the results.

More on Flickr.

Went out for a lil wander yesterday with the camera, mostly around Felixstowe way.

This shot was taken in Ravenswood however.. I got very lost in that estate, took me a good 10 minutes to get out of there!

Check out Gallericious or my Flickr page for more shots.

So the other day i figured that I need to start thinking about putting a photography portfolio together.

The problem

I wanted it to be available from my website but didn't want all the hassle of writing my own admin system n what not. There's a tonne of gallery type software out there, including my own Gallericious but these are all too big and clumsy for what i needed to do, a simple page with some thumbnails on it.

The solution

I decided in the end to use Flickr as my hosting / management and use the API to pull the photos out of a set and display it on my own site. The result can be found... Here

If anybody wants the code, drop me an email and i'll happily send it over to you.

Much Love!

x x x