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In-Home Shoot: Dad with Newborn

Alright next video, this one's gonna be dad. Dads are fun. I'm excited to teach you guys about dads. Let's watch the video about dad and then I will talk when we're done. I wanted to check the light in here, because it's getting a little bit darker, but when we lift this up we're still seeing super, super bright shade. So we're just gonna leave it and I'm gonna worry about it in post processing. I'm switching over to shooting in raw, I don't always shoot in raw, but I need to in this situation because of the paint color and because of the light. So it's giving me a little bit more control with post processing. Are you ready to tackle daddy? Yeah. Would you like to tackle daddy? Can you do it? Let's see you do it. Go tackle daddy. Up there, go by daddy. Jake, come up here. Hey, come in. We're about done, we're about done. Go hop up with daddy. Hop up next to me. Climb up there, climb up. (camera clicks) (camera clicks) Can you climb up there? Climb up there. Hug daddy, real ...

tall. Real tall. Can you hug me? Can you give me an ugga bugga? There's something. Iggy wiggy, that's what I used to call it when I was your age. Can I get an ugga bugga, Caden? Can I get ugga bugga? Oh, don't each the couch fuzz, honey. (laughter) Let's snuggle Daddy, give him a big hug. Get him, bear hug, go. Okay good job. Bear hug daddy, go. Going with the flow, good job, Dad. (chuckling) I love this, I love it. Aww, that's so nice. Can I get a kiss on my head? Thank you. Okay, can you, hold on, our light is changing. Let me fix this real quick. Can you go on Daddy's shoulders? Do you want to sit up on the couch? Come on and get up on my shoulders. Here, let me help you. Like this? Like this, ready, can you sit up here? Okay, now hug Daddy. Give Daddy hugs. Put your leg over here. Can you put your arms around my neck? Give him a hug. Okay, I think we're losing him. Hold on, I'll just put you back down. Ready big hug, hug Daddy, hug his neck. And go, there we go. Oh look at the baby. Hug Daddy and look at your sister. Aw you can look at him. Yeah, you guys look at each other. I got it, that was the shot, gorgeous. Look at this, I love it. Oh I love that. Love it, love it. Okay, we're good. I like what you're doing right here just stay right here for me, okay? If you can try not to rock, I know it's hard. Perfect, stay there for me. (shutter clicks) Okay. (shutter clicking) Okay, good job. Okay, so what I want you to do is I'm going have you go ahead and sit down right here for me, and I'm going to have her. Do exactly what you're doing, just go ahead and sit. Okay, just like that, yup. I'm going to close this 'cause these are uneven and that's going to drive me crazy later. Okay, just like that, yup. I want to be able to see both of your hands. There we go. One sleeve, we're gonna pull the other one, there we go, that's better. Just look right down at her, don't look at me until I tell you to. (shutter clicking) It's really bright. (shutter clicking) She's smiling, she's kind of smiling, isn't she? All right, we are going to. I'm going to switch my light balance a little bit. It's a little bit green in here so I am going to change my white balance. I'm shooting in Kelvin now, changing it up. So because it's such a warm tone in here, I'm actually having to shoot this right here, right around 4350. So, that's a pretty cool Kelvin number. Aww, good yawn. (shutter clicking) If you can, tip your head back a little bit for me, so I don't get your nose in it. (shutter clicking) Is you in your daddy's arms? Are you going to yawn? Okay, I'm going to turn her a little bit. Okay. There we go, just like that. (shutter clicking) Perfect, oh that was ridiculously cute. Oh oh, was that a burp? Oh ouchie, go ahead and get her comfy. Oh she didn't like that. That was a big burp. Which I want to do this anyways so just go ahead and stay there. (shutter clicking) Okay, relax your face for me a little bit and just be sweet with her. Okay, can you pull her up and do nose to nose for me. We're going to do the same thing with back lighting here in a minute. Okay, go ahead and put your legs together for me. And you're going to lie her on your lap, right there, yup. Just like that, okay, and I'm going to stand over you. Okay. (shutter clicking) She's trying to pirate eye us. Say open or close, missy. Oh, there you go, oh. She's thinking about it, there we go. Are you going to open those eyes? Bounce her a little bit see if she'll kind of startle. She's like I'm too warm, I'm too comfy. I know, I don't want the one eye though, you know. Come on, hey, wake up. There we go. (shutter clicking) Got her. Oh that was awesome. Okay, so I'm going to do a pull back now. Stay right there for me. Okay can you pull her up and do nose to nose for me? (shutter clicking) Awesome, same thing. Okay, now I want you to stand up for me. You're going to turn and face the door. You're going to hold her like this for me, okay? We're going to do a back light, there we go. All right, pull her up for me, so you're nose to nose a little bit. Stay there, I'm shooting this for black and white. Even closer, okay? You don't even need to smile, just be gentle. Just close your mouth, mhmm. I'm silhouetting you right now. (shutter clicks) Problem I'm having, I need that stool. Is the top of the window is cutting his head off so I need to be taller to get the shot. Okay, there we go, problem solved. Okay, turn a little bit more this way. Right there, no not that much, a little bit, right there. Okay, back to nose to nose for me. Awesome. (shutter clicking) Okay, can I have you come in here? Kind of wrap yourself around, whatever feels natural. Okay, there we go. Okay you can do that, that work. Actually know what, go ahead and stand on the other side and you guys come together so your heads are together. No you're right, you're right, stay right there. You guys come together, you, dad, he's too tall for you. So this shot's not going to work. Which is fine, a lot of times what I'll do is I'll have you guys come together. Let's go ahead and pass the baby to you. So you do that, the same thing he was doing. That's okay, don't worry about that. Okay, now you guys are going to come together like this. Yup, so I want to show connection, so you guys need to be right there, and then you're going to bring your foreheads together. Okay, this is going to be for a black and white too. Don't hold her stomach, 'cause she's not pregnant. (laughing) Dads always do this, and she's not pregnant. All right, bring your heads together, and close your eyes and look down at the baby. (shutter clicking) Okay, kind of smile at the baby for me. We're having significant significant color cast in here, it's very yellow. It looks like you have revere pewter on the walls or something. We do. Yeah, I should work for Benjamin, yeah I should work for them. Okay, this is gorgeous. Okay, close your eyes one more time. (shutter clicking) Perfect. Oh my God, this is going to be so pretty in black and white. Oh, I love that. This is the best job ever. Perfect, just like that, except for I need to close this behind you because again, symmetry. All right, you okay? In your sweater? All right, can you go by Mommy real quick, little man? And then we're going to have you come climb on Daddy in just a minute, okay? Okay. Just pretend I'm not here. (shutter clicking) Okay, swing this way for me, your whole body, a little bit. Yup, just as comfortably as, men don't bend easily so. Hold her this way for me, so her little head's gonna go underneath your chin and we're going to do this again after we take her swaddle off but I like to get all the swaddle shots done while she's sleeping like this. Okay, just like that, okay? There we go, she's so content right now. Okay, just like that, yeah. Okay, for this one I do want to move the chair. Okay, so I need to get some light on your face so I can get kind of an illuminated picture. Look down at her real quick, we're doing this way. Okay, now I'm going to come this way, turn your whole body again that way, yup. Just look down at her a little bit, yup. (shutter clicking) Okay, can you actually hold her like this. Remember how when I was holding her up. Like this? Uh huh, can you do it in the middle though? There we go, yeah, now just kind of snuggle her. (shutter clicking) Yeah, perfect, you can smell her, do all that what you're doing. Turn her little head towards you so your noses looking at her, just give her snuggles. (shutter clicking) Perfect, gorgeous. Okay, stand up for me. Up down, up down, I know, sorry. I'm going to show you what I want you to do. I'm going to take her from ya. So what I want you do, if I can do it you can do it, I have little hands, okay. You're going to kind of hold her like this, okay? Okay. You're just going to be like oh, you're so sweet. Yeah, that's great. You got her head? I do. Okay, so turn around, so hold the back of your head. Yeah, she won't break, I promise. Just support, you can put your thumb underneath her chin. Just don't like look like you're choking her. You know, there we go, just like that. So, like that. All right, hand behind her head a little bit. Okay. There we go, you got her? Mhmm. Okay, just like that, perfect. Okay, just snuggle down on her. So sweet, can you look up at me. Kind of tilt your head into her a little bit. Now look up at me. Kay, tilt her chin out though. There we go. Head this way. Okay, look down at her one more time. (shutter clicking) He's back there telling what I'm saying. I want you flatten your hands a little bit so she falls in your hands. Just like that, lean forward. Right there, you got her? Mhmm. Okay. (shutter clicking) Awesome, favorite shot of the day. Tilt her a little bit towards the window so she's leaning, there we go, like her head. Yeah, there we go. Now bring your head to her and just snuggle her. Okay, I'm going to take her bow off. Same thing, I think I'm going to like it, there we go, just like that. Okay, snuggle her, lean forward. Yeah, there we go. Okay now I don't want to totally see your nose. So what I'm going to do is you have to just look at her. Lean forward if you can, it's just a better angle. Chin out, okay and just look at her now. Okay, stay there, one more of you looking up at me. (shutter clicking) Perfect, okay. A couple things, I want to let you know that was more posey than I typically do. With dads I like to do a handful of shots that are natural but I also like to do a handful that are a little bit like this 'cause what ends up happening is dad will naturally turn the baby, start kissing the baby. Things just organically happen. He was just being really well behaved and just listening to me really well and I think it's 'cause he knew that he was being filmed. Most dads will do this and then naturally bring their heads in and start looking at them and that kind of, you know that organically turns into something else. We were talking about here in the live audience that dads just have a more difficult time holding babies. If you guys haven't noticed that their arms are longer. It's just not as natural for a man to hold a baby. So you as a photographer, if you can direct them something to do with the baby, it makes it a little bit easier. I'm going to go into a ton of other dad shots that we did not cover in this video. You want to show a dad doing their thing, okay, essentially. Once we go over that, like in their spaces. What do dads typically do while their holding the baby? New dads? They'll be sitting there watching football. With a clicker, right? Holding the baby in one arm because mom needed to take a shower. So, we want to show dads doing their thing. Dads will be playing with siblings a lot of times and then having the baby nearby, okay? So these are the shots that we were taking. I was creative like composing these, composing, compositionally shooting, you know what I mean, all of these images. So in the video it looked like it was far away, the dad was holding it this way, right. It wasn't, I was coming in on them to have a creative composition, okay. I decided to chop dad's head off at the top. When you were doing limb chops, body chops all those sorts of things, a couple things to remember. If you're going to chop a limb off, don't do it at the joint, okay? If you're going to chop a head off, do it about here, don't do it here, okay. That sounds and it's funny but it's not because a lot of times people will do this and you know a lot of new photographers always get the shot with the dad or the parent holding the kid's hands in between the legs, right? And a lot of times they chop them at the hips, or they'll be swinging, and you'll see head chops, just don't do that, we're not decapitating people, okay. This is not, you have to think about these things with your composition. We are strategically composing. Yes, we're having fun. Yes, we're flexible, but don't let go of composition rules. This one down here was earlier in the day, see his feet right there? So, it was funny because and it's a little bit crooked I think I put it in the template wrong, but the tech crew was going to move him out of the way. I'm like don't touch him that's adorable. Like I want that to happen, dad was doing his thing. We just go back to doing his thing, and we were getting him ready, this was earlier in the day, we were getting him ready to go do some shots and he's being silly with dad in the room, okay. And so I left it, that told a story, okay. And this image to me is a lot more fun than any other image, okay. And we have, I took a whole bunch of these, and we're going to see all the images that I took towards the end, but I wanted to show you, that's fun. Standard dad shot, standard side lit dad shot. Do you have the parents take their shoes off? Like if you go to a house and they are in shoes and socks? 'Cause I saw that they were all barefoot. Yes, so here's the deal with that. Dad's feet aren't exactly typically barefoot friendly on camera (chuckling) especially my husband's feet. Like long toes. So, that is up to them. If you were on the bed, and you're piling on the bed, do you typically wear shoes on a bed? No, so in that case we make the decision, I mean if he has like you know white socks on with like neon pink toes or something, then we're going to take his socks off. What I'll try to do is tuck his feet under and put a kid on his lap and hide his feet for something like that. So, it's kind of up to the family. Some families are no shoes on families to begin with, so they are barefoot and if that's the case I make sure dad's socks are typically black, or fun like polka dot, right fun and playful. 'Cause you know dad socks are in right now. Every man, like all the men have fun socks. So, if they have some fun socks, I'll through fun socks on. That's a really good question actually, 'cause men's feet are not meant for camera. (laughing) It's true. You were all thinking it. Okay, another question. Whenever you were shooting dad in front of the window, you had shot him I guess at eye level or-- Yes. And then you got on the stool. Why did you get on the stool? Thank you for reminding me that. Do we have that in this image? No. See where the couch is? He was standing here and the couch was cutting him off. Now earlier I talked about you know what mom was there, okay earlier we talked about the was there who cares. If you can control it, dad's tall enough, his arms are way up higher than mom's were. I can control that situation. So by elevating myself I was able to get a true silhouette. Also by doing that you will notice that the shades were right there close to dad's head, okay. When I was photographing him I was getting it cropped at the waist with the couch. His head was also way too close to the top of the shear. By bringing myself up, I angled down, I get rid of both of those distractions, okay. So if you find distractions and you're thinking to yourself, "My goodness, this shot would be amazing if the ceiling wasn't there." You know? Or like, "Oh we could move that 4,000 pound leather couch, that would be amazing." Move yourself, okay? That's why we did that.