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Lesson Info

Shoot: Marion - Sensitive Babies Part 2

silly little tidbit but always entire knots way before you throw it we have a dirty laundry hamper on set all the time always entire not because of a baby poops herpes on it and then you gotta wash it and you left the knot in it it's really hard to get out and it doesn't get all the way clean and tips job right now is to just control the feet and the and the head in particular so when I'm training someone to be an assistant I'm like okay hold those feet legs and hold those feet legs and let me get this let me get this because if those legs and feet are allowed to fling out babe's gonna wake up we're not gonna have an easy time of it quite tightness she's got some gas just little gas that's going told her this yeah that's great settle for second because she's not perfectly the way I want and I don't know if we can get alex is shot uh the jib overhead but I don't want people to see the overhead view of this and that her face is in line with her body I need to twist the head to create tha...

t comma that I want the s ship shape you know how the s curve right it's kind of like an s curve seeker of concept with a baby okay so right now she's just like dead straight on I'm kind of letting her settle just so she gets nice and sleepy and then I can move her head and we'll twist it and then we'll let alex get another shot overhead and that'll wait okay let's go ahead and make her look girlie okay I'm gonna go ahead and choose this one because I love it and it matches the set really perfectly ok it has little green tones in it again devoted nets she sent me these and I just about like we old in my studio when they all arrived oh perfect she just knows my style and you'll that's what'll happen is you'll discover that there are certain vendors out there that are totally you you know and you'll want to use their stuff all the time because they suit your style way delicious sweet girl wait you're gonna shoot this quick like something you have to work hurry can we gently twist her a little bit so that we short like you just wait do you see why I twisted her she's a sensitive girl okay get the image that sometimes literally tiffany will hold hands and feet and they go one two three back and we'd shoot and leave I mean that's like sometimes how sensitive famous can be I do the scar's a little funky over here but we'll fix it no the green one over on the side but I can fix it I tied it so that you see why I'm unhappy with this I have one and I like him off kilter but this is too much like um I like one shorter than the other but um it's a little bit way we can get another foot out I love tiffany because she's so willing to trish's like no let's make it better come on we can do it you could make it cute and meanwhile sometimes like when I'm in the midst of a situation with a client I just get it let's just get the shot let's go no that's big perfect there so you could see on the screen the image and again she wants to touch her head supersensitive baby so I'm going to kind of let her do it s so that we don't wind up with oh that's a bottle with a hand thinking perfect delicious those feet sticking out she's totally acting like she's gonna smile too and then closing okay so they're all all that work for three shots but that's the way it is um you know that's that's what we do is we it's close medium far you've got your sequence mama happy that was happy could and this is also like see how cute her hands of you know right now I would told you macros right here I pull out my macro lens I start doing these little feet the little head the little lips oh you're just delicious can shoot you and then oftentimes to what I'll do is step back and kind of shoot from to get the bucket a little bit like let the floor suite back or I might move her closer here so I have a nice background on the floor you don't need a huge set up with a lot of background to do this this is what would be great for on location photographers you take a floor and a bucket with you it's not that hard to carry around especially these candace floors there a piece of cake they're not heavy on and you know one person you could show him around without feeling like you just ran a marathon after you've done with your shop so I think we got it I think we're good okay so why don't we take some questions from the internet and from the audience here and justice first supplies go I have boatloads of receiving blankets at my studio this is the bucket that we brought with us of supplies I have three sizes of diapers for newborns have three sizes of diapers newborn one and two for my baby planners and I also have fours and fives so for older babies who come in because there's nothing better than when mom has a blowout and they're is supplies for her they're ready she had blooper alert did I say mom has a blowout brush baby has a blowout and mom needs to take care of it is what I met s o we have ah the dressing room at the studio has a changing table but then it also has a ton of these receiving blankets because you're constantly moving that baby in and out of different poses and they're always naked they're gonna poop and pee on mommy's blanket so and she never brings more than one so go ahead and you know stock up on these yeah your studio there you confined him pretty much any baby store and then we also have hair gel on hand for mom during during parent shoots we can smooth flyaways and then of course the hand sanitizer so all these things having these things on hand on close by you like often you can get like a little tool chest that you can carry just carry that with you around your studio and have the supplies on hand it's really helpful so yeah any other questions how we doing on confusion anybody needs some help with anything yeah what was the difference in the pose between the first basket in the second baskets we were trying yeah it's a good question we were trying to dio talk oppose where her feet were like up by her skin she didn't not her hands I'm I'm acting like the hands but I can't campaign like that I was trying to get her in a nice folded talk opposed so her feet were like up by her chin she's a super sensitive baby and it just wasn't going that direction so I modified it kind of did something similar that we did before that right there is my go to every session we do it in every session we have you know decent quality images that are the same but what the client expects expects and anticipates with every session and people always ask me like you're doing the same image with every single plant don't they don't think it upset with you don't they know that's what they want that's where the sting of my website that's what they're saying from their friend sessions they want the same thing the buckets that looks everything all that changes but overall they want the same looks so don't try to be too different and when you want to be creative with things that's when you start doing a personal work may be the end of a session you have an idea for a concept that's new do that especially with mom's permission and that kind of thing but for the most part reliability inconsistencies he's a huge part of being a pro I think a lie's so any other questions other questions of our studio audience before we go on line all right so yeah I've got one so julia becky from the chat rooms is asking and actually a few people are asking this could you refresh us and remind us how many sessions you do a day and how long they usually last per session I will only do one new more today I shoot about two to three a week on average um that number we really just got to remember last year and I've been formally in business and bend for almost five years and I've been formally business as a photographer for eight or nine so it took me five years to get to the point in my studio where we were doing two to three babies consistently every week um last christmas for some reason christmas is always busy no matter whether it families are babies we shot almost forty babies from the middle of october through the beginning of december so there were times when I had to do a couple of day and that is exhausting it just saps your creative energy you can't do different things it's it's hard to focus s o I it's and this is totally personal this is creative process this is what works for you if you could do two or three day my sister khun totally bang out two three four a day no problem I'm just saying I can't do that it's physically mentally draining on me as faras how long they take if a session takes me two and a half hours I am dying this is taking forever you know so for me an hour and a half session is ideal under two hours is very typical so between an hour and half two hours is what it takes to looks on the beanbag the posing order is this sideline taco then we'll choose between forward facing and sleepy time so what kind of decide if you want to do forward facing because if we're going to do for facing we switch from taco too forward facing and then we change backdrops we do bull and then usually ninety nine or toshiya okay that's typically the order of how we do it and it varies a little bit but when you transition from one pose that seems to work well to go into the next one that's how you should think about him so sidelines air really nice easy one to start off with and then you can kind of go into taco or into forward facing that's two poses one bean bag look change the backdrop on the beanbag you could go straight from there to bull scarf shot and then to ninety night no problem and there you've just got four different looks three shots per look at least more like five says twenty schauble sellable images right there not including black and whites then we do one bucket ok close medium far it's very informal of three or four images okay then we go to family we do two looks with family one look with mom one look at that and that gets me thirty to forty image is no problem every time yeah do you really know on lee my favorites I'll go through pick my favorite because some of these bucket images look fantastic and black and white because of the texture and the zones you know the zone system there's so many value gradations that the texture looks beautiful in black and white also on the beanbag like a real clean look with just skin can be stunning and real simple black and white so usually pick my absolute favorite images and macros two or sometimes but mac was in black and white yeah at what point do you decide to get the babies too fussy do you reschedule what happened yeah tracy good question thie there are times and that's one of the reasons we no longer allow circumcised babies in our studio I don't say they can't be circumcised I say it has to be done after we see you or six or seven days prior to coming to us so I have a real firm policy about that because a circumcised boy I've had several people who come to me that with a circumcised boy the day before their session and that I mean can you imagine his little wee wee is raw and I'm trying to wrap him putting these positions it's not gonna happen and there are many times probably at least two in the last several months we finally just inserted this policy just a few months ago where I had to send the baby home or and there was one who came and said oh yeah he was just circumcised yesterday and I looked and I went we're going to reschedule and she had come in andi I went sorry we're going to reschedule so yeah it's just don't do it and if there's a really really really just fussy baby naturally sometimes that happens it's totally happened to me and it's so frustrating cause you're like oh I want to do good for this family and you know usually the next day they're fine if you can get him in and reese got a little go for it I'm always about that yeah what if you shot half session babies good and then halfway through baby starts flipping out do you reschedule or did you just go with what it's happened that one baby that we had just been circumcised with family images and he was fine with family find a mama's arms the minute we started putting him in the bucket he just had a complete fit every time we put him in I mean literally every time we put him in the bucket he would melt down and so I sent mom home she came back two days later we finished out session doesn't have a very often I'd say twice a year but it happens julie question came in from creative juices photography do you ever let clients bring in their own props and I know we kind of touched on that can be touched on that again yeah I do but I would say ninety percent of the time I don't use them I let them bring them in and I say yeah yeah of course bringing it especially if it's sentimental I don't really allow it if it's just something they bought off the internet because you know we have so much stuff at the studio that and I have you know this is what I love on a baby's head not you know a flower the size of the moon s so it's so I will tell them if it's small we can certainly work with it and like I said yesterday sometimes it's literally like hot pink or white I don't know about you guys but I don't like white white is so bright and the camera just seize it and in granite if I'm doing high key find that that's you know with family whatever that's another story but with buckets and blake and things like that it's just so well jarring that's all you see in this set up so pure white and pure black I always pretty much stay away from because they're too high contrast for the camera to really see especially against baby skin now if I had an african american baby with really dark skin but most african american babies don't start off real dark they get darker as they get older they start off usually pretty pink on dh then they start to get more their skin tone riches as they get older it's very rare that she'll have an african american baby who comes into with a real deep dark skin that they have as an adult so but even then you know I might use darker colors with that and I'm not saying stay away from black but I'm just saying be careful be real careful with black but precedents back to the props if it's something like oftentimes parents will bring in a hand knitted blanket that the grandma did or something that has huge sentimental value and that emotion in the image is a huge sale so if it's not like right white chances are I will try to incorporate it anyway I can and shoot it but it doesn't always happen but if it's if it's sentimental I will do my best to try to incorporate it sometimes you just can't like you look at so not your style or it's got like bunny rabbits all over it or something is just not going to work with what you do then you can just politely tell the client oh it's so cute but I'm really afraid that all you're going to see are these little bunny rabbits on the white instead of your baby and I really want to make your baby stand out and they go oh okay great fine end 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