Baby Photography Tips - Bokeh {MD Infant Photographers}

Baby Photography Tip for the amateur heading pro or the parent wanting some improved baby photos at home!

Have you ever wondered what sets a great photo apart from a good photo? In my opinion the bokeh you can achieve will play a major role here...what is bokeh? This is basically the blurry background, the blurrier the better in my opinion so lets talk about a couple things.

First, you need a lens with a large aperture. How do you know it has a large aperture right? When searching for a lens you will see this for example: Canon EF 50mm f1.4, the "1.4" is the max aperture for that lens. Some lenses are 1.8 some it's 2.5 some it is 4.0. This number is on the side of your lens so take a look and see what yours says. I rlike the following depending on which camera you have and which price point you are looking for: Canon 50mm f1.8 or Canon 50mm f1.4 and Nikon the 50mm 1.8 or Nikon 50mm f1.4. These are prime lenses meaning they do not zoom in and out and they are great for very blurry background shots =)

If you are photographing with a zoom lens, extend it all the way out.

Then your subject should be placed at a distance from your background. If you are photographing your baby in your home or using a wall for the background, for example, try to have them sitting further away from the wall, not sitting right up against the wall. If at the park, same thing, place your baby quite a distance from those beautiful flowers so they can be nice splash of creamy background color in your portrait!

Get as close to your baby as you can while still composing artistically, do not get so close your camera doesn't focus =)

You also want to have a background with some light, spots of light through trees looks great if outdoors.

I hope these couple of things will get you started with having better bokeh and making your images stand out!

About the Artist:

Rita Lawrence is a professional baby photographer specializing in the season of newborn baby portraits to the one year old birthday milestone. Through her baby photography workshops she also teaches photographers how to start and run a profitable Baby's First Year business such as hers. Workshops are in a small group setting and offer a complete curriculum for business, hands-on session/model experience, and post-processing training in Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. Check out the website HERE for more information on these baby photography workshops.