Well, welcome everyone we're going to talk a lot about babies today, which is like my favorite time together and I see a bunch of good smiles in the audience there that's that's always fun just a little bit about me just to put a face with the name I like like susan said, I have a studio in bend, oregon I work mainly with babies as matter of fact, we just recently nichd into babies almost completely, which really did amazing things for the business and grew it exponentially here in a short amount of times that was really fun I'm also an official trainer for pro select software here in the u s so I teach photographers pro select in sales how to do it in person sales on that to me has been a really great thing for, you know, increasing your profitability in your revenue stream, which is we're always looking for a cz business owners, so if you want to find me this is how to find me real quick. I'll show this light at the end too, so but people always like to ask questions and I love to an...

swer them so here's how to find me if you want to follow interact, talk, email, twitter, you name it all that good stuff so we're talking about babies today, new warrants and more specifically parents and newborns okay, which is a topic that a lot of photographers are a little hesitant to attack and I always wonder why but it's important to attack and then we're gonna talk about that in a minute but first what you're gonna learn today is how to capture that emotion when you're working with parents a whole different scale of things happens because number one that baby it's so small this age and we're trying to capture them in that five to ten day range and they're so small and when you put that baby in relation to the parents in the parent's arms what have you done guys cynthia amanda kate anything what do you think? What have you done to your image? You've given that parent a sense of scale reference because as a as a mom I don't change right I'm still going to be unless I gain too much weight or a bunch of weight or whatever I'm still going to be five foot seven inches tall and in my arms were still going to the same length but you put that baby in my arms at ten days old and now all of a sudden when I have an image of that I can see exactly how small that baby wass on a bean bag in a basket the way we traditionally like to do it if you don't know how big the basket is, you don't really know how big the baby is and that baby will outgrow that parent's arms in a matter of two months that will never be that's the baby will never be that small again, so to be able to capture newborn images with parents is so critical because number one you're showing how small that baby is and number two you are capturing emotion because now all of a sudden you're allowing that love relationship to be transcribed through the image and that's really important. So what you're gonna learn today is how to capture that emotion in your newborn images of course lighting techniques and planning your set skin tone, hair color, eye color, all those things they're set for us when the parents come through the door, how can we take those color tones and textures and create amazing image out of it with harmony? We learned about that we're going about composition and why it helps to find the art and sell the emotion how to handle baby's asleep or awake, which is always the big taliban government telling what got my baby didn't sleep through the session it was awful, you know you just define a bad session as one with babies in the sleep right is your heart starts to palpate you got that baby better go to sleep, I'm gonna help you through that ok wrapping and soothing techniques for artistic poses and wrapping is one of the most key things you can learn today because it will save your booty on many occasions when a baby is awake or a little bit older, you've got a four five weaker and you want the session right? You don't want to just skip it up because the baby doesn't have to happen to be the right age rapping is going to save you in those situations talking apparent through posing, getting real emotion from them these air new parents there they don't know anything about this baby, they don't weigh less than you d'oh, so you all of a sudden you're the expert on the baby you're also the expect the expert on the image and you're the expert on the emotions are going to talk about how they come forth and really bring forth powerful, true and emotion that has integrity to it okay, and poses that we're can tell every time I mean that's that's awesome that's kind of beginning ok, so we do sell emotion, I think that's the biggest point to take home today? And why shooting newborns with parents? It is important we don't sell a piece of paper, we sell the emotion on that piece of paper on dh there is no better time to tap into that emotion than after mom has given birth, because how many of you had a baby's? What sorry guys poor gets taken and right back on there like I know that's not me thie few men in the audience I apologize but if you have kids you do know what the emotion is even if your dad okay? Because when dad's first have a baby that emotion comes to them right when the baby's born not during the pregnancy where is with a mother it's during the pregnancy they start to bond that baby they're thinking about what they're going to look like. They're centering within themselves and really feeling what's happening in their bodies so when that baby is born, not only is there emotion really strong but their hormones way things were a little crazy after you've had a baby because our hormones are just out of control and it's true there's a physical change in your body where your home once progestin estrogen levels are trying to stabilize and that first two weeks you guys have all heard baby blues right baby blues mama gets the baby blues about two weeks after her babies born she kind of starts to get a little depressed it's truly a physical chemical thing in her body where that progestin levels trying to level out and her I mean it's like having pms really you're thinking you're grumpy you cry at the drop of a hat so but on the other hand she's in love with her baby ok? And we all know that moms are typically the ones making the buying decisions in the portrait session, right? So we wanted tap into that now granted people could call that manipulative you know, the point is we want to make amazing beautiful images for our moms and dads, right? And so when we can tap into that emotion and do that for them and really personify in two dimensions on a flat surface what it means to love your new child then we're successful and we've done a good job. Okay, so why don't photographers bring the parent of the post anyone, anyone? What do you think, hillary? Maybe they're just nervous for what they happened. Yeah, yeah. It's an extra layer, isn't it it's an extra layer that we have to bring in another person it's posing it's two extra hands and that could be a little bit intimidating. Okay, so I think a lot of photographers are afraid because it is that extra light layer and it requires seeing the pose, but remember why you got into photography to begin with guys, why did you get into photography? Because you can see you were born with it. You know that deep in your heart you can see an image whether you're an image maker, someone who takes the components of an image in puts it together and snaps or here's someone who's, a taker who just seize the moment and crabs it. Usually most photographers are one of the other or a combination of both, and when you learn to see even more effectively as you grow in your education that's a powerful thing, and that should give you confidence that adding these extra layers like a mom or a dad and the pot's can be successful not we're going to try to do today. Images with parents, believe it or not, are eighty percent more likely to sell than an image of the baby by itself huge statistic isn't that think about how much money you're leaving on the table if you don't shoot the parents huge now, this is the question I always get, but mom comes in and she's twenty pounds overweight and she doesn't want to be photographed it happens photo shop is a beautiful thing, I always say, look by and it's true, I liquefy all my moms and they may think I'm crazy and I would never make it look like something or not, but I will help them feel pre pregnancy, which is what's important because she is not going to twenty pounds overweight forever my fact that way is going to come off of her in a matter of a couple months. And she's going to want to remember herself with her baby as she was before she was pregnant. So that's what we do, we're not doing things that are so drastic that she looks like, you know, on elle magazine model or anything like that. I mean, granted some of them do, which is just wrong on so many levels that a woman would have a baby and be that skinny afterwards. But it does happen. We're a little jealous. We move him anyway. So it's, the parents who feel and it's our job to personify those feelings into an image. So this is my camera here. It was a matter of fact that eighty five millimeter, one point four g lens arrives tomorrow. Can I use the eighty five one eight right now? But I just had to put that on there because it's coming, you know, but that's really all that's in my bag. You don't need much here. You just need a couple of lenses to shoot newborns, and I use these continuous lights and that's about it. Continuous lights are amazing because they don't flash in the baby's face. They're very soft there, daylight balance and actually what you see is what you get so, you know, you're looking me here on this set here. This is what we're going to be shooting so you're going to actually get to see the light in action without without having guests with the stroke is doing which I always think it's nice okay let's talk about lighting a little bit more designing an image I'm an image maker I really wholeheartedly admit I'm an image maker I have a couple friends and bend one of her name is kimberly and she is an image taker she will go into a situation and just you know, without a doubt see the moment grab it I can't do I got to compose it all okay, so I really strongly encouraged when you're learning to design images do things according to your own sense of personal style, et cetera, et cetera so and tiffany, my assistant who whom I will bring him here in a second introduce you she is amazing image maker, but she's also take her to she could do both, which just blows my mind because I can't do that. I will miss the moment if it your photo journalistic style I will miss it. So I'm gonna teach you a lot about when my strengths are because it would just be a travesty if I tried to teach you how to take an image when I'm really an image maker, but anyway let's talk about lighting and lighting is a key to making an image ok what makes good lighting for newborns lee give an answer where's the microphone let's get ugly the microphone awesome even soft lighting even soft lighting why is that because baby you're so exactly what kind of give me an answer but it's true babies are soft there around their skin is so perfect and delicious we want tio show that and the way to do that is with really soft low contrast ratio lighting now granted a while ago there was a huge trend to do babies on black do you remember that where newborns would be photographed on black a lot and it was really cool when it first came out I was kind of the thing in the trend but was very dramatic and it was nowadays it's starting to look a little to me the right and this is all personal pain but it's to me it looks a little sad and a little bit depressing to me newborns are light they're bright they represent innocence there very heavenly and fresh and so I'm going to try to make that happen in an image so babies are soft sweet and pure so we show them that way with soft lighting and that continuously it is great to really to show that this is my lighting set up at the studio this is my space it's pretty much like we have set up here I have two westcott spider like tt sixes I took the bulb off the back one there or excuse me the modifier off the back when they're so you guys can see actually what the light looks like and it's just tabled daylight balance fluorescent lighting. Ninety percent of our newborns are shot. That way I do you strobes or have you strokes in the past and you can use strokes with it. I strongly encourage you to. If you you do strobes, you strobes that are extremely low power. Why would I want to do that? Anyone have a gander at a guess so you don't startle the baby? No, necessarily. It's a good answer. But that's not that's. Not quite what I was looking for anybody else think? Why do you need low power? What? How can you influence your camera settings if you have low power, softer, even lighting software, even lighting. But what else? What? What controls what with a strobe? What do we have? No control over in our camera shutter speed, but can't the flash will sink at a specific speed and we have to be at that speed. Correct. So the on ly parameters we can control in the exposure triangle r I s o aperture and the power of our light and the distance it is to the subject, correct so if my light is super close, I wanted to be close to that's going to give me soft light, right? So that's kind of a given to so now the only things I can control r I s o aperture. So any of my eye I saw was the is the lowest it can possibly go then the only thing I could control aperture, right? And what I want with babies for immediately. Some people feel differently. Yes, kate's. Got it. We want wide open apertures. Lower numbers too. Imagine shooting f two in the studio and what you're granted with two subjects with mommy, baby, we might want to be more like four or five, but high like creamy boca in the background. I like things out of focus to give that sense of softness and really make the focus. Go on the baby. So if I can shoot it f two at one two fifty seven seconds, six speed. I gotta have low power lights to do that. Right? Otherwise, my if I have super powerful lights, that requirement issued f ate that control damage makes sense. So if you're gonna you strobes, try to find the lowest power strobe you can, and with great in these alien, these are dirt cheap. And the cheapest ones they have are the best ones to buy because they're low powered, which is great for babies now for other subjects that means it's a different story but for babies it really does work well, okay let's continue on designing an image we have a couple of givens right when the client walks to the door hair color, eye color, skin tone and what they're wearing right? Well, I'm gonna take what they're wearing out of the picture because that skin on skin looked to me is really beautiful and all the guys in background like mom naked really know not quite we're going to wrap her in some fabric you know how most wedding dresses, air strapless interview women who've ever bought a wedding dress you try to find something with sleeves and it's a nightmare to try to find a wedding dress with sleeves? The reason is because most women look fantastic in a strapless dress, so we're going to kind of create a strapless dress with a simple blanket that's it on dh. So now all of a sudden I'm taking the clothing factor out I can control that color, texture and everything with what I put on her okay? So it's really important when you design the mitch to think about these things color, texture, composition in style so we're going to talk about color here's a little exercise I want you to stare for twenty seconds and that black dot in the middle of the red triangle and then after that before you start doing this after that you're going to switch over to the dot on the right that has a white background so go ahead just stare for twenty seconds at that orange or red triangle to stare at the black dot for twenty seconds keep staring keeps daryn just keep looking just keep looking just keep looking I'm counting down on my clock here I'm doing awesome just keep looking it's probably good enough okay now stare at the black dot on the right just keep staring at it what do you see? Uh there's a triangle mayor this blue green isn't it low how did that happen? It's a little weird in that kind of a cool exercise when I'm trying to demonstrate to you is that our brains want harmonious color okay color defines emotion in an image it could be a power for powerful tool in creating an image that makes someone feel something. Remember what I said the beginning it's all about emotion you want your parents to feel so color syrian color harmony is a key vital component to creating images that stimulate those soft, sweet emotions in our hearts ok, so you saw that green blue green triangle it'll work with any color your mind switches to the complimentary color on the color wheel so let's, look at the color wheel here's a classic color wheel your mind we started off with this red and your mind switched over to green because it wants to balance that he wants to balance the color so it goes to the opposite side of the calorie color theory is really cool and cut me, um what? We have to work with its skin tones, right? Those air givens we can't we can't change skin tone and her tone and eye color. Okay, so those air kind of something that we have to work with and skin tones are very muted. There's hugh value and intensity in color. Okay, he was the actual shade value represents how much black or why is an image and an intensity is its brightness. How how bright it is. For example, I'm wearing a very muted brown at the moment. Let's. See here, let's. Bring over tiffany. My wonderful right hand here, everyone, this is tiffany lawson. She she is my associate, dr two suitors she shoots are gems line and she's. Also someone I can't live without an amazing artist. But she's wearing a blue color here and it's kind of a it's got a medium value and it's not too bright. Ok it's kind of in the middle of the road bright if she was wearing like a hat blue that would be a very high intensity color but if it had a lot if it was dark tone than we would call it a low value does that make sense so colors have that you think they will come back for you colors have value and intensity in case so skin has a value in an intensity what do you think skin is just plain white caucasian skin let's start with that is my skin very high in value doesn't have a lot of light or dark in it a lot of light in it right now. What about the intensity? The brightness of my skin? My skin is kind of a peachy yellow orangey tone to it right is a very intense no it's very soft okay and most babies skin is like that and parents, for that matter now different skin tones, asian skin tones, african american skin tone's going to dealing with different values and intensities. But the important thing is to remember you're gonna want a pair color center harmonious right with that right? You're not going to put me in like bright yellow or orange that would look a little where it would send a different message and the image right this is my calories is what I love and that pretty just yummy is all about babies and softness all of a sudden you're emotionally smiling others like yeah it's also your emotions that kind of calm down a little bit when you see that don't don't they really make you feel soft oh that could be a baby you know so you'll see in my work a lot of I use a ton of these soft harmonious colors to help make that emotion come forth so here's another good exercise to help you to find your own sense of color style okay explore the art world there's a wonderful website called google art project google our project dot com I believe it is I recommend doing what's called a swipe file on your computer just go to google art project and start screen shotting images that inspire you okay don't think about why it inspires you don't worry about the oneness just I love this and putting my file okay this is my file I like this a couple arson here and her wife stank according is one of my favorites there's one piece in there that's mine one of those images is my it's on the upper right ok very similar feeling it's what I'm drawn to and what I love and my colors so you can event you know works for babies this works for family portrait this works for weddings you know it runs the gamut when it comes to photography assed faras your own sense of color self but I want you to do an exercise I took andrew wyatt painting here insist fantastic exercise take a little square you can see the red square that I pulled out there I specifically pulled out and my art instructor told me to do this and I thought she was crazy she's wonderful, her name's heather michelle into the painter and she told me take out a square and pull is many different colors from as you can. And so I purposely took the darkest of this square that I thought was there in the painting and said, ok, I better there's only like two colors in here look at all the colors that were in that little tiny square your brain harmoniously wants to find color, and andrew wyeth was a genius at finding color and putting into his paintings and academy. Can you believe that that whole rainbow and doesn't look a lot like my color wheel? Those are colors that I'm drawn to as a human being, and I think it's a lot of reasons why I like to shoot babies because they're soft, mellow colors and that subject matter is also the same way composition is extremely powerful stuff you guys know this for the most part, but that rule of thirds really helps create emotion and image ok the power points these power points do have subliminal meeting and there's argument on this I mean this is we're talking this is stuff that's fun to talk about but it's also theory so do you take what I say with a grain of salt if you don't believe me that's totally fine but however, how I have come to learn the power points to be is this lower right power point is that place of peace and rest in the western world we read like texture books from left to right, right? So we open a book left, right? We finish on the bottom right corner of the page correct so it's kind of where things feel good to end it's a place of peace is a place of rest. The upper right power point is still that place of rest but it's kind of an exulted feeling, whatever I'm doing a baby pose with parents where we've got the baby up in the air and you just seeing dad's hands we have seen that pose before and I will always put babies face like on the upper right power point and a lot of religious are you will see jesus in the upper right power point because it's that place of exaltation, glorification but it's also a place of rest and finish so there's not a lot of tension or conflict in that space over here on the left this one is like it's still a place of grounded nous but the whole right side of the frame would be empty and so it has this feeling of uncertain future like what's going to happen I don't have the conclusion I don't know what's happening in the end of the image follow the upper left power point is really precipitous that's the place where you like put a bride on a cliff whose husband just left her you know that kind of thing it's like that really precarious place but composition these power points they they do have meaning and you can use your subject matter to really enhance that meaning okay, the gold mean of course it's extremely important as well this is mother nature's composition you'll see this in like a conch shell or snail shell it's all over mother nature, that spiral motion and you know I could get the math it has to be is a plus b but yeah, I'm an artist let's move on it's powerful stuff the golden mean is mother nature's perfect ratio ok and you can create images that have that sense of composition as well we're just gonna talk about a couple of these because there's so many different ways to compose an image, but if you have a couple of good strong ones in your in your toolbox on then you can kind of go to those and then as as time goes by and you kind of get sick of those and you'll start learning others and getting mohr tools to work with so I really strongly encourage you when you're creating a newborn image with parents use color theory and composition to design your image is think about this stuff before you shoot okay your images will improve tenfold this means combining backdrops and floors basket the blankets clothing, hair color skin tones, headbands swaddled and wraps you name it we have all these things with layers of color then they also have texture you want to combine the textures as well? Baby's skin is very soft so sometimes it's kind of need to put a texture on there that has a little roughness two it to create that juxtaposition to create that sense of contrast without jarring the viewer without jarring there I okay if you use high contrast in color that khun jar the eye sometimes but using contrast in textures helps to keep that contrast there but not quite so intense okay safety I can't be a newborn teacher without talking about safety it is vital stop my feet and get on my soapbox and be a crazy lady about safety do not attend poses you cannot do safely just period in a statement if you're hesitant don't do it practice with a doll practice with a teddy bear do something where you know you can get it first and then practice with a baby you know, obviously we're talking about parents today but these types of shots where we do the hanging scale shot and stuff like that all that's done with baby on the floor baby is never ever lifted in the air and it's really important to sing I mean think about it physics this image right here if that a pound baby was sitting in front of that basket, you fall right over it's a suspension of disbelief ok it's the movie industry it's it's fantasy on we're making viewer of the image believe something that's not really possible I'm saying with his chin in hand post it's the same thing it's not really possible babies can't really do that s o just keep those in mind and be careful about being safe hand sanitizer is my religion I suggest to become yours too if you're going to be a new born photographer I went out actually we just got a huge display in the hospital and tiffany and I were there installing it and they probably shouldn't say this on live internet but that's ok, there is a bottle of three and event guard hand sanitizer this stuff right here sitting and I just scored it we had it on our card is we were installing the display there and like man this is really nice stuff and we accidentally took the ball and I certainly didn't steal it I actually took it but I loved it so much I was like ok I gotta order the stuff this stuff is amazing ok it is a medical grade hand sanitizer and it doesn't make your hands like dried out and it doesn't mean it's a little alcohol smell but not bad at all so I really had to recommend if you use this stuff a lot you're going to find something that just steal it from hospital it was an accident I'll replace it wipes we always have wipes or towels on hands as you can see it a little stuck a tallis here I have blanket moms always bring a blanket but they usually only bring one and usually gets pooped on so I like mom to not use her blanket so that I she does she could go home with clean banking it's just things over time that you learned become familiar with the name it clean towels clean blankets and props use a baby friendly so when you clean things charlie soap it's a fantastic thing if you go to diapers dot com they have all kinds of baby products for babies and charlie soap is something that you would use like for cloth diapers there's a big movement right now to come back coming back where moms are going back to cloth diapers and you have to watch them in baby friendly soaps that are gentle on their skin so it's really important when you do wash things after you've used in this session use baby friendly soap that's not going to irritate the next baby skin approve pile it sounds funny but you want to put pile okay but he's looking at me like are you crazy? I could be a little bit crazy but that's ok we have a laundry basket in the studio that's just for stuff that's been soiled on what? What message does that send a mom? What message does that sent? What do you think? Police got the microphone over there. Oh, very good that it's ok that it's normal? Yeah, that it's normal number one and number two that I wash everything or baby touches exactly she knows that when it's soiled I'm doing it for every single client walks to the door it's just going to get washed the minute your baby's done with it so she knows the stuff and pulling off the shelf that's clean has had the same experience and that's important. Okay um this is a big one. Make sure you're vaccinated. How many of you guys know what protest is's? Yeah for justice otherwise known as whooping cough is a very serious illness and its pandemic right now in california and creeping its way up the west coast there is a wonderful photographer named natalie down in arizona who lost her baby to protest this at four months old okay, she had or maybe over the holidays took her baby to see family over the holidays baby came back with a cold look off it turned into purse uscis baby got pneumonia and died three weeks later okay, so you need to treat yourself babies don't get their first protest this vaccine until their eight weeks old okay, so you as a photographer need to treat yourself like a health care provider like you're a nanny like you're a day care provider, you need to be vaccinated for protests is and flew especially with us going the flu season and it's so important can you imagine how you feel? Ah break my heart if something happened because I didn't know I just had a little cold because adults don't feel protested the way babies do it to us it's just bronchitis is just a bad cough but for babies it's can be terminal so make sure that you really take that to heart and confidence. Like I said before, those babies first time parents you know what you're doing a heck of a lot more than they do you may not feel like it, but you know a lot more than they dio so use that confidence to your advantage posing safety parents are usually nervous and so we're going to post some babies here with their moms, which I'm really excited about. I think we have two babies here, which is, and one is seven days and one is thirteen days, so we got right in that time period, which is so far, they are usually nervous. Okay, this is a big ordeal. And granted, we're even bigger with all these cameras around, but even in your own studio, with the lights and the camera in their face, I mean, seriously, if I pick this camera up and point at you guys pictures, pictures, I mean, granted my lens caps on pictures, this is all kind of get ok, I'll see up mrs hall and look good, you know, impose myself a wait, wait here and we all do it, okay? It's natural and your clients do it even more so understand that this big black box in their face can be intimidating, and so they're nervous. It's your job to kind of help calm them down and make them feel comfortable. You have to talk them through our calm apparent into relaxing, and you're going to hear me do this when I have my mom's here, I just met these bombs today. So this is exactly like it would be in a client situation, I don't know them, I've never seen them before, so I'm going to give me my job to help calm things down, especially and even more of an environment where we've got cameras and lots people watching. So now for some hoses it's, just a given baby has to be sleeping, so a lot of the poses we're going to do today are going to be determined upon whether or not baby truly sleeps, but it's good, because this is a real world situation, and I want you guys to see, well, how we do it if babies not sleeping, we have a few poses that we just resort to that are good slam dunk, get him every time kind of hoses, and those were the best kind of have because you know, you're going to money, he was going to make money on beckoned from from the image and more importantly, that you're going to give that family something to charge so poses that involve a parent or sibling must be secure, and you'll see that that hasn't called poc right there poc is a point of contact, there are always three always three points of contact. This is really important going to stress this here in a few minutes, but three points of contact creates strength and security in the post okay and allows the baby to feel comfortable and and that helps them not fling so much talk about what that means in a second but it's the moral reflects um like I said before always composite specialty images and photo shop your confidence will talk apparent through oppose explain oppose first then executed with the family okay I always actually demonstrated myself do this or dad do this you know so that he knows what he knows that I can do it so therefore he can do it that's comforting to them oil and then finally I worked with him without an assistant for years I will never go back once you have a tiffany you just don't go back and I shall we encourage you to find a tiffany um interns at colleges nannies people who just even have some understanding of babies they can be trained on how to assist you and just having somebody who could talk a foot in that's popped out or anything like that it's just makes life so much easier and it gives you that sense of security like there's someone there watching who if the baby does all of a sudden fling away she can be there to just go we're calm we're good it's an extra set of hands and it's just makes a world of difference in what you're doing so the points of contact or three they're typically include the arms so the two hands and the chest so in any baby pose I want dad or mom to have their hands close to their chest or their arms of the baby's going to be tucked somehow against the chest with the hand so we have that one two three point of contact okay, you could hear me explain this to parents as well this creates a secure pocket and also believe it or not comes the baby down and it's because the baby is here I am baby what kind of crushes them all in and makes him all pipe and they feel secure and that is so important because it helps it's an instinct in a child to want to be tucked in swaddled especially a fresh baby because think about it they just came out of the world it was kind of a tight quarters in there not a lot of square footage okay? So it's important to replicate that and we're going to get into that right now the newborn mind you're like you guys don't think I'm crazy but it really is true intro to the newborn mind one o one this is your college level crash course right here understanding of the newborns view of the world it's a cold insecure, quiet, unsteady place think about that it's a cold, insecure, quiet, unsteady and still place what yeah welcome to the world of newborns think about where they've been the last nine months they've been in this warm acquis cramped cocoon environment that is allowed with heartbeats and blood flow that's what they've heard in the last nine months so when you bring him out of the way they've only been the world for seven days, right? So you as a doctor have to replicate that womb toe help to soothe and calm them down this is something called the five essence we're going to get into in a second, but if you still me simulate mommy's womb where baby felt most comfortable and secure you're going to avoid what's called the moral reflex how many of you actually work with babies? Work with newborns anyone? No one's here oh, how we got fresh audience love it if you work with a baby and we have darling little babies over here that we're gonna play with those thank you play within a minute when they're asleep even in their wake they will just randomly fling an arm it's like a startle reflex they just kind of or foot will pop out and it's literally a herky jerky motion and in wakes him up and they cry on my gosh you know it's it's it's a startle reflex it's a safety instinct for them so we're going to minimize that as much as we possibly can and the way to do that is using the five s is these are magic any photographer should have these memorized tattooed on their forehead written in blood on their eyelids and scribed into their tin bone I don't care just know him because they will help you tremendously what they are is swallowing when I mean by smuggling is you know we're going to probably we're going to wrap a baby here tio demonstrate wrapping techniques and that's truce watling but you can also just swallowed by keeping the arms and legs tucked in okay so just keeping everything together don't let unarmed fling out side or stomach position now of course the medical industry says don't ever put your baby on his belly to go to sleep because of sids a sudden infant death syndrome embodies worry about that but in a newborn session it's not something you need to worry about babies you're there with baby they're not going to stop breathing if they happen to be under stomach okay so you're gonna put him on their side and you're going tio jiggle them swinging and let's bring tiffany over here because she's actually doing this with with our little baby is this anna lee right now this is on a lee adalius thirteen days old she's doing the five s is right now at least she's doing two of them okay she's got baby nice and wrapped up in swaddled are three of them excuse me she's on her side got the baby on her side and she's giggling ok, how much jiggling are you supposed to do? That's the big question because sweden the s is technically swinging, so is it swinging? You know, some dads, the new dads who come in the weeks leading, no, not quite shaken baby syndrome is bad, we don't want to go there, okay? I'm sure you guys have heard on the news random stories of people whose shaking their baby to death and that's really scary. I liken it to ebola jell o your mom made jell o when you're a kid and was so fun day like go up to it and just elected to go jiggle it don't crack the jell o okay? That's already jiggle just like that just to get it going, get it about about that harmonious where them where it goes with and that's all we're doing ok think about mom when she was eight or nine months pregnant bagel, billy went up the stairs, okay knows she probably couldn't run at that point, but that's ok, she's, you know, walking around doing her thing, that belly equis environment is moving around a lot, babies in their jiggle and moving around that's what we're trying to replicate that's all we're doing sis ing shooting is a louse out and you want to be very close to baby babies. Hearing is not developed at this age, so it has to be loud. I have a lot of moms who say, oh, my gosh, I turn on the vacuum cleaner my kid went to sleep it's because of the loud sound. Okay, that loud replicating the water and the heart beat in the blood flow through mom's body that's what that's replicating. Okay, so sometimes I would just really allowed in the year and especially on a crying baby, you'll see them could begin to calm right down and then sucking is the final one. This is the one I use is the last resort pass. A fair works really well for this. Some moms are really against pacifiers because they're trying to establish breast good breast feeding habits. And so you want to be really sensitive to her needs there, but oftentimes just a little finger in the mouth. Make sure you've put your a little hand sanitizer on first. Ah, little finger in the mouth, let him suck, and that will so that the top of your pinky is on the roof of their mouth that will help comment because that's sucking reflects really gives a sense of comfort to them it's breast feeding. Is that all it is? So and that's what? When a baby feels their best so anally is gonna be nice in a wake for it looks like so that's. Good. We're gonna have a baby he's awake. We're going to show you techniques for wrapping and squabbling. Um and working with a baby that's actually awake. So okay, I'll call you back in second. Thanks. So one resource to read more about the five buses is dr harvey karp's book the happiest baby on the block. He's actually, the one who developed five buses. Pediatrician swear by this this is what you are taught when you get pregnant. This is what you are talking baby classes is how to do the five s s. So I strongly recommend this book if you want to read more on the topic. Ok, so one of those s is one of those important ones. This modeling it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. Especially if you've never done it for the baby. Okay, not only do we as photographers have to know how to do it, but I have to look at which is another challenge. Um, this is the classic swaddle that they teach you in the hospital it works. But it's really ugly and there's no way we're going to photograph like that because it's just kind of doesn't really show how cute baby is and then you can curl up okay? We want them in nice, curly, wonderful poses so it works but it's ugly so we're going to go ahead and demonstrate a swaddle here. So do you wanna bring anna lee over here? And we'll put the bean bag in and get her role in here? So the meantime, you guys have any questions about what, um, what we've talked about so far, we have a question that we're just kind of non it's going no, no, no questions at all, okay? Tiffany's gonna bring over the uh, bean bag and I will help her by taking as my fact I'll bring over the bean bag so you could just hold baby yeah, thank you. Have a question. Yes, dawson let's go for a question this is online question this is from claire ascani who says claire, where I don't know where she's a student of mine has doing it never ceases to teach me something new. Her energy is contagious. Thank you. So the question is, I love newborn photography, but I don't have children, so before you have children were parents to have we're nervous to have you work with their babies do you think you have to be a mom in order to work with babies? No and if you are a mom do you think parents are nervous toe have you worked with because you're not a mom because you've never been among you know okay, I I just my son is two years old and I've been shooting babies for six years now so and he's my only child so I've been cheating babies long before I actually had one now I will say that having maybe does give you that sense of what your mom is going through now you can really relate to her a little bit more because I found myself being able tio relate to parents a bit more when after I'd had a child but you don't need to be there remember these are first time parents they they don't know anything about this process they're overwhelmed as it isthe so you coming in having even photographed just one or two babies probably no more than thirty two so again I really encourage that confidence and it's a quiet, humble confidence it's not oh, I know what I'm doing and I'm going to make your baby great you know it's it's about just reassuring and establishing that trust it's a lot like dating someone it's cording you're going court your client and make them feel loved and welcome and that their baby is in good hands ok, so we're going to wrap on early and I got to demonstrate how do that and I always do this it is possible to do it alone but let's go ahead and put her head that way like you normally do she might we're going take her out of this warm environment so she might fossil of it because she's gonna get cold okay, so we lie out of bean bag a nice long rap like this and then we put her on her side and she has her diaper on so let's go ahead and oh there's poopy poopy stuff in there so we'll clean that out as we go here ohio tv well she's not too bad good job, honey only noise a little cold right now with it it's a little cold right now. Okay, so what tiffany does when we do this is she hangs onto the head so she and it's really interesting how when you touch a baby's head and just keep your hands on them they calm down, okay? It's it's just a comforting thing um honestly it took me like five years to figure that one out once I figured it out I'm like ok assistant always always someone's hands on the on the head so she's going to hold the head and position the hands a little bit here oh, I know, sweetheart and they usually complain a little bit right here, but what? I'm going to his first tuck nice and tight the edge of the shoulder I know, baby and then I wrapped the edge of the shoulder I'm not worried about the rest of the body right now underneath and then bring along I know this bean bag is a little bit different than what I'm used to too. Usually we have a really flat hard bean bag ok, full full of stuff, and tiffany is just kind of soothing her with yeses and jiggling her everybody thinks babies air really fragile and they are, but also think about where they just came out of I mean, that was a kind of a journey, so don't be afraid, tio talking on and pull on him and move him around a bit in this being vegas coming get me a little bit here and she's already starting to calm down and be happy with what we're doing here. I know, I know on I just start at the top of the body and go down it's just like a little cocoon and sometimes I leave the feet out because the theater so cute doesn't love baby feet you're doing good baby girl erica okay, so here we have are all wrapped up like a little cocoon, okay? And you can get really particular about this like where the actual blanket goes and as you do it more on specific situations will get really picky about how you like to do it um but I strongly encourage is taking a teddy bear and practicing on a teddy bear least laughing at me I get laughed at a lot of good thing keeps you keeps your line right um but yeah so now she's nice and swaddle and noticed how she's just kind of calm down immediately and tsunamis going jugular and do the five s that she's not crying right now so I could go down here goes and sometimes a side to side motion helps but you can see here just kind of start to fall asleep and it's just a jiggle like jell emotion okay anyone we could wait her out to make her sleep but I think I'm just gonna go ahead and shoot mom with her week because you guys need to know what it's like to shoot a baby awake and asleep so we'll go from there okay but if I'm gonna have you come on over and talk quickly about supposing and then well then we'll get we'll get maybe posed no you still cute? The thing is you should totally get your mommy instinct kicks in when you hold him like you know maybe I want another one okay where's my little clicker here there it is okay so before we get into the actual art opposing I want to talk about what's important imposing you wantto highlight the relationship and I know I've said this a couple of times now but it's really important the parents are in love it's super important to capture that love and to me it's even more important than the wedding because the start of your family is totally more significant in the story of your marriage I'm good pete on way with flowers it happens it's a hazard of the job okay I will go and hand this often hander off tiffani tiffany are you around awesome and this happens all the time it's truly is a hazard of the job and it happens on the parents it happens on you I always tell parents to bring on extra um yeah well probably respond thank you captain did job pee on the instructor you know the way it happens it's worse when the projectile pooped goes just you know, knowing me that will happen this one too so before we get into posing I want to talk about how to shoot it ok? Because it's kind of a pain to move baby from one post to the next you want to get as much out of each pose as you possibly can so how you do that is you sequence your shop like a videographer okay videographers are taught close medium and far okay so that they can then go into the edit room and then they're taught cutaways ok then they can go in the other room and edit things together for a smooth knife time span of images ok, you could do the same thing and have a variety of images to show your client okay so just think clothes medium far with one pose you can achieve at least three different looks alone and then you can layer onto the post we're going to talk about how to do that by bringing in siblings by bringing in parents et cetera et cetera but this offers a variety without moving the baby constantly which is really important so we'll first start off with the baby embrace pose and a couple of variations of it this is a simple effective starting out pose you can bring in parents you can bring in siblings especially older siblings right? The three year old mark is right when you can bring a sibling into this post two year olds can be challenging to say the least and I have one or two go to polls is that I have with siblings who are two year old and it's pretty much what we finish out justcause two year old that you know they're not quite at the point where they can help out with baby so you know just different things for different ages especially with siblings so let's go ahead and wrap her back up again I'm sorry already doing it iraq so they'll be having questions while we're re rapping baby out of that yeah I mean, how long is the typical session last how long is the typical session last it's a really good question they used to be like three four hours which is crazy and then what I did was starting tio do just this pick a few specific poses take a few shots and leave it at that don't I was overshooting that's why it was taking so long but if you have a couple of goto poses especially you know one of the biggest fears of tarver's has and the reason that sessions takes along his baby's awake when they get there they have to be asleep so they wait out the baby sleeping which is a lot of what's happening in most newborn sessions is the diversion waiting for the baby to fall asleep how forget it you got you got a lot to do oh, you've got a market your business you've got to run your numbers all that stuff shoot what you know and go to the things that work for the different situations his baby's awake shoot those poses if baby's asleep great, you could do a little bit more so we maximize that baby being asleep what you guys don't know is I sent these moms and instruction sheet ok they are required to keep their baby awake for two to three hours before they come see me they all think I'm nuts but you guys know by now that I am not so that's what I asked them to dio is keep the baby wake for two to three hours okay, so that and I always do newborn sessions in the morning so they come in around eight thirty or so that first morning feeding that usually happens around five a m I say keep the baby week get her naked give her a bath room a little ice on her feet keep her awake they hate that but it works ok obviously don't freeze the kids feed off but you know just a little bit of ice or anything just cool him down a little bit if you cool baby down they will stay awake so that's another reason why this place is so hot you know we're all sitting here sweating like crazy that's for babies benefit ok, we're gonna have a heater here is well so keeping them awake for two to three hours and then they see them right when they get the studio full feeding I want that baby milk drunk oh, ok that milk is just like mother is worth it it's liquid gold okay and putting that baby in that side position on the breast sucking reflex mommy's keeping the arms and legs and tight babies warm that milks going in that belly and you can just imagine what happens baby just conked out okay? Not not all babies they're going to do that they all have different personalities it's a lot of it's genetics circumstantial mom might not have done her homework you just have to get world with a punch is so but that's the way you can maximize the baby will sleep during the session but again if they don't you gotta you gotta move through it and get the images quickly and efficiently but still beautifully so most for anyone to make a very short question a long answer most of our sessions are about an hour and a half to two hours at the most we have a gems line which is a mini session line for babies and those we try not to go over an hour with I think we're breaking that down to about forty five minutes now. Army awesome look she's rewrapped perfect. Okay, let's bring mom tracy it's tracy right, tracy come on back material I'm gonna move my lights around just a touch and you'll see that I'm working with this continuous light ok, so you guys are really going to be able to see you're really be able to see what I'm shooting and how the light patterns are falling on the face you know, move this one too if you guys don't mind I might man I might be in your way a little bit so you guys don't mind me doing this year awesome. Hi. How are you? Good. No, you can't and they all apologize for the peopie incidents I don't know why it's a hazard of the job, my dear. Have a seat. So what you'll notice is that tiffany has a wrapped tracy here and this is a blanket for my kia it's a twenty four million for mike. Yeah, okay. You know, you don't need special stuff to do this on dh she's just wrapped her like a strapless dress now she's been sitting in it if you for a few minutes so I am going tio adjusted a little bit. My biggest thing with this is making sure you know how all of us girls get this thing right here way we're gonna sorry you're such a good sport we're gonna try toe fix that, okay? And this bunching right here I'm gonna try to six is well, so we're just an often times start him. The way to do that is to just loosen it a touch see that how it just goes away and tracy so sweet to like do this on live internet tv most the time it's private in a studio but thank you so much okay so then the next thing I do the sights a little bit the next thing I do is kind of assess mom okay in her body frame and all I'm really going to see is this right here okay and I'm really particular about hair too so that's what they're a little bit and I also tell her I'm going to be in your bubble I apologize in advance so she just had a baby so she had a lot more people than me just in her bubble and in what ways that she didn't really want to talk about but I always warn them you know that I'm going to your bubble I have a few friends who you know talk to you like this and it's really annoying so I just have warner that I'm going to close to her and transferring baby back and forth and that I ask for permission I don't wantto just automatically do it try to respect her personal space so okay so what I want you to do is I'm gonna try that baby embrace pose but I'm also going to a variation on it to see what she looks like she has nice lean arms so she could probably do both okay so first thing I want to do is hold your arms like this kind of bring him around your body like that perfect now she didn't quite do it right so I'm gonna help her out, okay? Like that now go ahead and switch beautiful the reason I did that because my main light is over here and I want her to be able to help control the head and the head needs to go closest to the main right? So I'm gonna put baby over here so I want her to be able to hold holder annalise head up nicely etcetera, etcetera so this looks really nice she actually has nice arms for this. Ok, so we do we'll talk a little baby in here she's all swallowing raps on the cute the other variation on this baby embrace pose is to have her simply go like that and tuck the arms so then I could put baby in here we can kind of put her on the side this actually looks really nice to what should we go with what? You guys like this better she tried that one better it's funny how you can see what looks better, isn't it? Yeah let's go with this one so now I'm going to explain to tracy how things are going to work and this is really important part of baby posing because remember she's new at this doesn't what she's doing so I need to kind of train her through this process every baby pose has three points of contact for safety okay, I'm gonna put little animals head here and her legs here and her she's going to be close to your chest so these are the three points one two three we want to make sure she feels really safe and secure in your arms ok and she's going to feel that way automatically because she's going to smell you and hear you and that instinct is going to kick in and she's going to calm down the big thing for you to do is just relax a deep breath and let us show our attention come out okay girl yoga we love you but to me everything that you do is keep your fingers relaxed so tense enough that you can hold her but try not to let her feel the tension in your hands you're just you're just love and honor okay this is just kind of a nice moment and it's very peaceful some mommies do cry so don't don't get upset if you if you cry it's no big deal this is an emotional time it's an emotional thing I'm creating something very special for her and she knows that it's going to be pretty and professional and so sometimes they do well up with years with us because this is a hormonal time for them I'm sure she knows what she was like yes itself are mortal you wantto yeah it's so funny because you know it's hormones have been but rationally you're like why am I doing this? Okay let's bring an alien she's asleep now look at that. See if amazingly, discretion that's ok, ok, because you can't see seven pounds. Yeah. Ok, so now you're just a prop. Let me do the work. Ok? We're going to keep her rap for this one. We could probably do her making now that she's asleep but I'm going to go and keep a wrapped in wait it's not my wife. Okay, so now go ahead and keep her nice and high close to jin. I'm gonna fixer so remember I'm the you're the problem I'm doing the work take this finger just hold the feet like that when I did I just made her whole defeat right there so the feet don't know. I don't know I'm just going to juggle and let me do the work it's a hot girlfriend she's a sensitive baby ok, so she's not, um the other important thing is we want to see that face. Ok, so I'm going. Tio helped her out, all of it by rolling this. I know, but and oftentimes with sensitive babies I will shoot it and then fix it later not by photoshopped, but get a shot first then come back and tweak the pose and then shoot it again I want to make sure I get or something you know I mean and I think this is a classic client shoot if I was doing a model session for competition or something that would make its pressure is perfect before I shoot it but in this situation I want to create images for tracy so we're gonna go and shoot this even though baby's face isn't quite exactly where I want it I'm going to shoot it and then try to fix it and make it better after I know I've released got something that makes sense okay so you need a heater with him and how warm it is in here that's awesome okay watching up just a touch just fall asleep on baby girl here we go okay so it's also really important with these moms who are who had just given birth they weigh more than they normally do you want to shoot them from above to create that flattering angle okay really important awesome just keep your eyes close sweetie you're doing great. I want you to turn your nose just slightly into anna lee perfect little bit more and cook your own little small there we go nice. Ok. So now if you'll notice an ally's face is not in the light as much as I wanted to be okay it's a little bit um it's a little bit dark so what I'm going to do is help her by bringing this hand like that there we go and let's jiggle like jell o perfect can job baby girl and some techniques tiffany's amazing at this but if you just like rub the head I'm came back with your mom and dad that when your little baby girl oh so nice and that tends to calm them down a little bit and she's doing great good job okay suction up over like that awesome. We're going to let her just kind of do her little thing she's written hungry baby you see how she's rooting she's going on her arm it's just hungry okay, so we're going to work with her for just a minute here and get some shots and then I'm going to move on to the other baby you really want make sure their fault they're not full of sort of doing the whole time so we'll shoot a couple things and then let her pop out the baby girl and then we'll come in with you have another baby here is well so I'm gonna shoot myself here yeah she tipped me can you help me real quick? I'm gonna have you you guys will notice annalise right hand it's kind of over her face so this is where an assistant is amazing on dh she will help kind of rearrange and only a little bit and get those hands where we want them and sometimes it's literally holding the hand in running I mean, sometimes it literally is that and pop out of my life for me I'd open look at me, tracy awesome was that smiles your baby girl and just touch your lips to her head touches upset girl don't move you're doing awesome and in nice and tight beautiful okay? Are we doing over there? Awesome, beautiful and so what I'm doing is I'm sequencing so tilt your head just to touch this way I want to see your face beautiful warm in here there we go so I'm secret thing I'm doing medium close and far away you can go ahead and put your cheek on her like you're falling asleep chin up for me just a touch too much good girl. You doing awesome, tracy, my little hand. There we go. Let's tuck that foot beautiful she's hungry little baby girl you want to three little face. Okay, let's get so that's basically, baby, embrace post now, before we let her move on here. Um, dad can pop into this. So how we would bring dad in is to have a more up his arms around mama and he would fall asleep on mama like this it's really important to have him bring his chin up a pure mind being your husband right now but he would wrap his arms around mama like this the important thing with posing babies and mommy's is is the parentshands there's a lot of hands going on here so mama's hands are kind of controlling a baby you're seeing the sides of our hands which is why we never want to see the back of a woman's hand so you're kind of seeing the sides of her hands baby's face and then dad can bring his hands in like this and love on baby one of the fun things to do is to have mom kiss baby and then dad kissing here bring her chin this may and then god kiss mom okay it's like kissing waterfall we call it which is a really fun one two doas well and again sequence your shots okay then a sibling can coming in this side or a sibling khun b on a stool here kissing baby and dad could be over on this side so you could get a full family portrait with baby and siblings okay ok let's go ahead and bring in how you doing? Let me take her from you know you got a good okay let's go ahead and bring our other baby and we have another one any questions while we do that? Yeah it's david wright being there's the quote contest I really hope the winning quote is I'm getting peed on otherwise the question you mentioned safety is more concerned I think you've said a lot of things and a lot of great tips that help minimize concern but I also think that there's always the chance for an accident yeah, even if it's not your fault, it could be that the parents believe it's the fault dessert is sort of like insurance so you bring up in actually for sort of way you do without you bring an excellent point up it's so important have been liability insurance there have been instances where babies have rolled off being bags and broken necks on and you're liable for those medical expenses so you really need to make sure that you have liability insurance to your business insurance on and I would recommend at least a two million dollar policy because you're working with fragile things that are highly valuable. So yeah I mean and anything type of photography you do it's important? I mean, I've heard of stories where a family was next to a river dad was holding a two year old the photographer asked the dad to stand closer to the river the kid's squirmed and dropped got it fell in the river I mean you know what that that's it's scary so definitely and of course having an assistant on hand really helps too calm you and prevent problems from happening or at least reduce the chance that problems would happen so excellent question david and yes, liability insurance is a must and we do have a very high policy in our city of just for that reason any other questions he's doing good dad, we have a dad wait thanks for volunteering lindsey you're off lindsay's our line producer and she's just amazing they all are erin john they're cool guys okay, so that we have our other baby coming here it's getting warm in here isn't guys no leads like now I'm good you're doing great over there susan has been just like I don't know what I'm doing you're doing learning those five s is uh ok I think she's wrapping her up real quick come on over money ok so the next pot's we're going to dio hi my gosh she's beautiful look how pretty you are what your name terry terry everyone this is terry in which everything sophia how awesome okay, have a seat I'm goingto go through a couple of things before we get started the husband nicky is the more baby looks asleep yummy. And how old is she? Seven days and how much does she weigh on seven? Fifteen? I think she she's seventy seven ten now okay and I was she born full term okay? The reason I'm asking these questions is because those things help me determine how babies going to hate full term babies who are heavy usually sleep better not always, but usually sleep better, but particularly the full term thing is really important. Boys tennessee, better girls. Not always so the next. This is baby embrace variation that I was talking about with dad. Okay? And then we have a kissing waterfall, which is just a variation on baby embrace. So see how many poses we're getting out of just one placement of baby that's super important. And then when you sequence your shots close medium far, you're creating another set within just that pose. So all of a sudden, I've knocked out like, ten amazing images to show in my client and I have only move baby once so that's like crazy, valuable when it comes to efficiency and keeping your sessions short floor family is a really fun one. I think what we're gonna do that one first. Are we going to do mommy rap? Let's? See, we should we try to do prayer? You think he's asleep she's asleep, the nuts she's out. Okay, we'll try to do prayer post. This is opposed that requires baby to be sleeping. It's prayer pose or platter pose, we call it. So I'm gonna have you put you she's so pretty I love when I get stuff on isn't she would glowing in this light it's just like holy angel right here okay, go ahead and put your oh dear did you have you had ivy issues, didn't you? This right here is from the I z in the hospital and it's just something that you have to take out later I mean, you know, so I think it is for photo shop we can do this kind things but I want you to do is put your hands in prayer position and came with elbows together now with any baby polls there's three points of contact for safety okay, so I can have you split your hands and bring them close to your chest. I know it's a low where you're like well, is this kind of challenging she's she's pretty flexible I do this with dad's a lot too and dads are usually really stiff right here so you want to if they're stiff separate the elbows a little bit she can also separate here just a touch I put your risk together and the separate parables the kate of this is putting baby close to the chest okay, so I nto thiss takes a couple minutes to get into ok so we don't have twenty minutes so this may be the last pose we do but it's gonna take me a few minutes to get baby in here and here, my prop, okay, I'm gonna be jiggling you like this, and so you just let me jiggle you. The important thing is just to relax and stay calm and try to keep the tension out of your fingers. Don't get some hansen says it means I feel like I need for you know, like I said, this is a religion around here, and oftentimes we have a heater next to the baby it's really warm in here, so we don't quite need that, but I will warm up my hands on the heater so that when I touch baby, they're not really cold. Now, when I take her out of this rap she's going to get a local so she might be a little bit we're just gonna go ahead and try to calm her back down. I'll just take her. I can I'm good. Thank you. Thank you. Or the court fell off. This happens. Yeah, so just keep that in mind that that can happen. She's good. Don't be afraid. If it happens, I mean, you were like, oh, my gosh, what did happen? Her umbilical cord just came off, so when they come home from the hospital, they clamp it okay and it dries up and falls off after a few days so sometimes it happens in the session that's exactly what just happened okay so don't worry about it if it happens and sometimes there's a little blood when it happens so don't freak out that oh my gosh that was bleeding it's okay coast close to your chest here let me do the work risk together kristie mean forward here you go here okay, I'm gonna go ahead and choir here but just a moment I'm gonna go ahead and turn on about just a touch more on your way relax this hand drop that mr touch there we go and just go ahead and take a like jell o there we go you can wrap tickle your whole body so kind just kind like this where you go you have your take that hand and control those feet doing great we're gonna put this hand up your hand for me host your chest close you're just there we go way go okay pinky try to control that but we want to hide privates don't want private um always spit out a little bit okay okay I think I want you to do sweetie is just turned towards the light touch and roll this hand back she got a lot of that for last no you're good you're doing fine grow tall gods hate that moms are much more tolerant, okay, awesome no when I don't like about this pose see how mom's wrists are so far apart we're going to fix that ok so what I want you to do is just bring this hand here listen to this before I tell you I'm gonna tell you what to do in the morning doing ok so I want to do is when I lift her up you're just gonna bring this risk will sort of this one okay there we go good job see how that improves things dramatically just by doing that okay it was like I'm good okay and then I also want this just like that perfect so kind of keep her head rolled forward a talk and if you can lower her just a touch good perfect great okay shut up I'll sleep on her she's my baby girl back there we go beautiful okay okay so this is the prayer pose now granted if I shot it like this from below when look very good with it but the minute I step up just a touch it's gonna look a lot better now keep in mind just going close your eyes can you brush that hair out of her face for me this is where assistants come in so handy because they can like brush hair out of faces and things like that beautiful close your eyes depressed sweetheart okay one two three baby is pinky orange and mom is pale white ok? It just happens can you fix her finger on the eye? Okay, and I want you to bring her just slightly away from your chest so I can see your face is perfect that's better and just close your eyes, sweetheart and that is something that we're going to have to worry about later with skin tone you sometimes babies are just different colors of mummies and you have to adjust that later and photo shop to really at least make the skin tones closer. So keep that in mind that sometimes you just have to have to deal with things later, okay? And just keep closing your eyes, sweetheart there we go. Beautiful. Now I'm going in for the closer image. Ok, I think you're going to give me the stinkeye, sammy baby girl ok, and on the count of three you're gonna look at me one, two, three oh, I love the arm hanging it so cute and go ahead and kiss her little baby go just touch your lips to her let's get them heroin you're doing great so you know she's got those base you're doing great, okay, be ready for that. It happens. I know you're having fun over there I just want to get you get you comments while you're shooting this is so is awesome people are really enjoying watching the race good j to peck says this is an amazing example of baby photography I'm loving this right now is so, so good with both mom and baby blow powerful wanted to let you know the feedback that's coming out about my wonderful thank you I appreciate that so much that's well, thank you. This is opposed. Like I said, baby has to be really column or sleep that other baby anna lee might not be able to do this. You kind of have to gauge which ones they're going to be good. Which ones aren't but again, same thing dad can pop in here. What? That kissing baby little sibling on its tool up here like this kissing little baby girl. These are amazing family image isn't one of you created just by not allowing her to look at the camera that time, your smile and love on her baby. I'm creating this emotion in the image and that's the whole theme of what I want to get out today is creating that emotion. I think we're going to go through the rest of these and we have some darling girl images, so I think we'll leave it at that for now and so we can get through the rest of information and get questions like nobody's going to question everybody's trying to save themselves because it's like eighty degrees in here right now so what we just did prayer post or what's called powerball. Thank you so much. This is so beautiful. We're gonna have some amazing images for you, there's. Lots of variations on this you can see on the image on the right. I wrapped mommy in just one of those stretchy wraps for that kind of madonna polos. Are madonna feeling to it? Um and this is really what this image is about his mother and child, which does have some christianity type connotation to it and that's a lot of reason why people are drawn to it, but it's also just it really embodies that love that those parents are feeling baby on a platter is simply that have any of you ever waitressed before I spent many years waitressing and those big trays just pretend you're holding a tray and baby can be positioned on the tray on their belly, just like you would on a beanbag. And sometimes, like you said, like you saw me here, it took me a few minutes to get him the baby in the correct post don't be afraid of that happening. Just giggle like jell o get uncomfortable. They're usually when they're in mom's arms like that. They're going to be comfortable to begin with. So for daddy's chair post, this is actually my husband and son. Uh, collective this's. My husband, my son when he was five days old. But it's the chair position. You just have dad sit here next to the light. This is the scene of a chair. This is the back of a chair. The chest is the third point of contact and he could love on baby it's. Easy for him to do. Especially guys with big muscles. They can't do this kind of thing. So this is a comfortable position for them to be in on ben, we have football pose. This is where data standing like this baby is one two third pan ists point of contact three and baby is face out on drilling. Titan secure this hand is super important for dad to have on the baby's back. Ok, so that's, a key component of this is a great post for guys who are real, big or chested or have tattoos like that. It really shows off their ink. Guys have ink like to show it off so I would strongly encourage, encourage doing that kind of pose for that for siblings crisscross applesauce. This works great for parents, for images to siblings who are five years old or older. Put the kid in crisscross applesauce position and then it's just a matter of placing the baby in their lap like that like it's a being back I mean that's really it on dh then this post here is siblings on the floor so for two year olds you would put the two year old on the ground I'm going to get down to around here like this guys but the two year old on the ground make sure the baby is swaddled okay and put the baby right here next to the kid and then the kid doesn't have to worry about arms and legs getting free they can just hang on to the baby and with the baby swaddled it makes it a lot easier for the young child that hang on and then just you know, obviously you drop your light down issue from above to create that nice image with a two year old sometimes it's a struggle to get those two year olds tio but before we get into q and a real quick, those of you who want to get a hold of me can do so through julia education dot com you sign up for newsletter you get a little freebie from us and then we're also doing kevin could vote and I are doing a joint workshop in november invent oregon, so if you're interested in that we would love to see goto, cambodia image tools dot com slash boost to find out more about that. And then, of course, I do a bunch of teaching as well at various times throughout the year. So there's, some of my schedule coming up will be emerging yusa and then doing some private stuff in the next year and then, of course, how to find me. This is where I am and resources and products that we love us people like to know where we get our wraps and things. And these are some of the companies that that we use so let's get into questions. I know we don't have that much time so let's get into questions and try to spend the last few minutes here. I hope you guys at least got a taste of what, how it takes to pose a baby with parents. And why it's so important any questions at this point? All right, have a question from megan, who would like to know for someone that's brand new how would you suggest someone gets started in baby talk? You know, that's a great question, I would suggest finding pregnant friends and practicing on their babies that's kind of what I did. I worked for a tv station of the time we had a couple pregnant anchors, and so I said, hey, can I photographed her baby and that's really how I started. So just find people who are pregnant, whom, you know, maybe at your church or any group organizations that you may be in and that's really the best way to to find moms who are pregnant. I would even if you're bold and have a rule, you know, extroverted personality, I would even recommend taking like a little note card of some sort and saying, you know, you've been spotted and say you want to photograph their baby, especially as a woman it's a lot easier as a man. It's not quite so easy. If you're a man, I would definitely recommend finding friends and family who might be willing to let you borrow their baby. So any other questions? Absolutely arial would like to know. Do you have a room temperature that works best for baby photography? And I will say it's, probably about ninety degrees in here, so I'm guessing the answer to that question is yes, you do? Yes, what? And what was very hot, very hot just what I do, especially the winner and my students. I just crank the heat super high and let it just keep going. And then we have heaters, and then also when we do being back shooting when we do the baby by himself we have a big flow kati rug over are being bag with a couple blankets and then under that scotty I have a heating pad as well to keep the baby warm actually on the beanbag so as much heat as you can get, the better I would really venture to say it would be tough in a commercial environment or residential environment to get the house too hot too hot yeah, like I don't think you could get it too hot. Okay group all right, we'll have a couple more questions from s martin would like to know how do you handle babies with unique medical needs that that's an excellent questions matter fact I've dealt with a few I had a baby a few months ago who had a hip issue and at five days old came in with full bled casts on his legs if her legs actually was her name again she it's keeping my mind brindley I think she had a congenital defect and so when she was born she had to have cast put on her legs and so you know the pose is that we did you know, baby embrace pose the legs were just sticking out with a cute little cast it's on him you have to just go with the flow and figure out what works and if you can't rap a baby for those reasons and you know and remember, these types of medical conditions are part of who this child is and you don't want to hide it necessarily especially if the baby's going to recover you want embrace it and capture the special times that you know they're going to overcome in their life I have another baby coming in who's a little bit older but had a stroke at birth it's not uncommon for babies in the trauma of birth have a stroke and so you know, then you're dealing with mental issues on sometimes babies look absolutely normal but then with an older child you have to keep in mind that they may not respond to u s o talk to the parents find out what works especially with an older child with a baby you just kind of have to work with those casts or defects that you have and I don't hide them at all I think sometimes that that is what truly makes that child unique and that special so you wantto commemorate that so awesome julie why do you have a couple more questions? Okay let's see there were so many questions including from several people including memories by elissa and wendy marie on the material you're using and where you got it people are really curious about your wrath yeah let's pull out some of those wraps certificate you grab some of the stuff we use jd vintage props a lot love her design revolution I use a lot on dh, then any blanket that I confined like I was telling you guys earlier, the blanket that we wrap tracy and was from yeah, I spot when the twenty dollars blankets for my kia this's a jd vintage proper app. This is I forget with this is we use fancy fabrics and props. Roses and ruffles is another online company that we use for blankets and stuff these you confined. I'm sorry. Would you say eyes a little way, pete on this, you can find almost anywhere. Design revolution carries these. They're about twenty dollars apiece. I think jd vintage props carries these. This is also a jd ventures prop joanna dragon, just just beautiful stuff with lots of textures. You can see this to be a beautiful rap on a baby girl, especially when you wrap them and then kind of leave the tail hanging out. That could be really pretty and add a lot of texture to your image. So if that answers the question there's, a couple of resource is that we use for stuff, intuition, backgrounds. I really like becky gregory does a great job with kind of fancy fund background. Obviously, we just use seamless today on dh for parent images. I do use seamless paper a lot and the reason it's so I can liquefy because I want I'm usually gonna bring mom in and liquefy her a little bit if I have a fancy background then I have more issues liquefying so with family and because I typically try to use clean backgrounds that are easily worked within photoshopped awesome so let's take one more question and then maybe if you have any final words julia sure okay, so baby nuts would like to know how do you handle twins or triplets differently especially when it comes to the three points. Very good question twins triplets honestly, I probably I'd be a little nervous to dio standing pose with triplets the pose that all scroll through my keynote prez station here. John just you know, I'm going back to that triplets or twins specifically I will do this floor flow kati pose or is it right here on day I will have dad put both of his hands up here so I'm gonna get down on the floor again. Can I show you what I mean by that? I will put dad on the floor like this and have him with both arms up like this and you kentucky one baby in each side okay, and then have mom come around underneath him like uh actually, you see where dad's we're see where it says on my keynote presentation where it says main light and the arrow I would put mom in that position with dad having the twins right here or what we did the other days we had twins and they twins are usually a lot smaller so I fit to wrap twins right in death spot right here so twins you could do like that and you could add the third one over here this is the safest position for multiples I have done multiples where mom's holding both kind of like this wrapped with with multiple situation I would wrap no matter what just for ease unless I was feeling really ambitious and you know it was for portfolio use or something that I might try to do in making but you really want them cuddled if that makes sense squished and so squishing with one arm on one baby it's challenge eso if I was doing twins or triplets I would probably resort to that pose for the family image not help that's great. So any final comments that you'd like to share with all of the viewers around the world? Well, you know anybody can do this. It's it's not I really want to encourage people to not be intimidated by babies it's such a special time and having spoken from experience of my two year old, I can't believe that time has gone by so fast and he's already too and that made me realize that all my clients feel that way and so to be able to capture that emotion that you feel for your child is such a gift we have is photographers and it's. So it's such a responsibility. And at the same time, anyone who feels passionate about babies can learn to do this and handle them. And once you do get the feel for it, it's not that hard and it just takes some practice and it takes him effort on education on and of course, places like creative live or a great are great venue to do that overall it's a huge responsibility, it's an honor. And when you have people come to six months later and say the image you took are so precious to me because I'll never get that back again. And because it was so fleeting is such a rewarding experience. So I strongly encourage you to study color study composition. Yeah, it's one thing to be a technical photographer, but it's another thing to be an artist, and when you can hone in on your art and really make it an extension of your heart and who you are, then your work is it going to become exemplary and soar above everyone else is and I, you know, I think that's the big take home messages, take that emotion and put it into an image

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Julia Kelleher

Portrait Photographer, Julia Kelleher, M. Photog., Cr. CPP, specializes in newborn and family portraits out of her boutique, Bend OR, studio. She offers her clients a photographic style that is organic, textural and artistic, and specializes in creating heirloom albums

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topics covered in this class

Family & Lifestyle Newborn Photography Digital Photography

Ratings and Reviews

Billabongfox

This course is great if you want a quick video with tips on how to take newborn photographs with parents. It is a great alternative to the popular and common "basket pose" or "beanbag pose" that a lot of photographers use. This is almost a shorter version of another course Julia did on Creative Live. So if you want more in depth detail this class is not for you. I would highly recommend any of Julia Kelleher's full classes. She is a creative genius and an amazing entrepreneur! Her classes have changed my photography career forever. I couldn't thank Julia enough.

Judy Reinford

Julia's classes are a must for newborn photographers. If you are not a newborn photographers there is much to be gained by getting these classes. Buy all of them! I am now 4 times more profitable than I was 2 years ago. I am so happy that she teaches on Creative Live. I really don't know where I would be right now, without first finding this class.

Paul Hicks

Ms. Julia, This is an awesome class for the price you have put on it. Thank you so much. I am a grandfather and own my own photography business...and love your style of presenting...Newborn Photography.

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Newborn Photography: Relationship Posing

Newborn Photography: Relationship Posing

Lesson Info

1. Newborn Photography: Relationship Posing

Lessons