How to get babies ready for photo shoots.

Alright, so we’ve got somebody doing their first baby shoot and they’re worried about a screaming baby and how to calm them down. That is a good question because basically if you’re going to do a kids, babies, pets, they’re going to bark, they’re going to cry, they’re going to [do whatever], but you’re going to hit issues with that so patience is obviously the main thing – making the environment comfortable for them.

So she said a baby shoot, I’m don’t know how old the baby is, but especially with newborns a nice, warm cozy environment with some gentle, soothing noise – some ambient noise – can really help. And not using flash, I think makes a big difference too, so if you can use available light for babies that’s ideal so they can sleep – in the shade, obviously, not direct sunlight – in a nice, warm room.

Taylor: Yep, easy. I’ve kind of went the other direction where I don’t typically shoot newborns. I did this thing called six to 36 where I’d shoot kids between six months old and 36 months, and I just found that by the time they were able to sit up, I really liked photographing before they were actually aware that they were being photographed. Once they get to that point where they can start giving you those awkward looks like “why are you taking my picture?!” . . . at that point, it wasn’t that much fun for me anymore because I just don’t have a strong connection with young kids like that. If you can put toys or something in front of them when they just kind of hang out there and they’re happy, you can just do your own thing and just throw a 50 mil lens on there or something like that.