As many photographers know, baby photography comes with a huge number of challenges that are specific to it, not least of which is often an uncooperative subject. Photography can be difficult enough with a professional model standing in front of the lens, but when it's a small person who just doesn't care, the importance of the skill of the photographer is tenfold. For this reason, baby photography is its own genre with well paid professionals. Luckily some of them are will to share the skills of their craft so we curated 10 of the best baby photography tutorials we could find. Enjoy!
photograph: take great photos of your newborn baby – This is a VERY detailed tutorial in several parts and probably should be your first stop. The parts of the tutorial are split up in a logical fashion and show a lot of typical traps in photographing babies and how you can avoid them.
Anne Geddes on How to Take Photographs of Your Child – This advice is from arguably the most famous child photographer in the world and should be seen as more background advice and reflections on the issues surrounding photographing children than as a strict “how to” tutorial. It is still very much worth a read to get in the mindset though.
what is the best time to photograph your baby? – This is a very useful overview for child photography as it goes into the specific ages at which certain common poses and typical shots should be conducted. It's also great to get a bit of inspiration for those specific age brackets that you are likely to be shooting.
Photographing Babies, Toddlers & Kids by Summer Lyn – Like the first link, this tutorial on Nikon USA delves into the more practical aspects of photographing babies with information on gear, lens selections, shooting position and the like. This is a good basic primer.
22 Newborn Photography Tips Every Parent Should Live By – We included this list of tips as it's dovetails nicely with the juicer “how to” tutorials above. Remembering a few of these tips each time you press the shutter will certainly get you an improved image on what you might otherwise shoot.
DIY Newborn Shoot: 10 Tips For Photographing Like a Pro – This is just a stock standard and easily digestible group of tips that you should read and commit to memory. The basics and not much else – a great one to give a scan if you don't have time to dive deep into the craft of photographing babies, but want some solid tips to improve from a baseline skill.
Top 8 Mistakes of Beginner Newborn Photographers – This is a great wrap up to the baby photography tutorials and tips above because it concentrates on what not to do in newborn photography and the main pitfalls. For example, did you know you usually shouldn't use the colour red in newborn photos? Click the link to read about that and some other mistakes.
Final Thoughts on These Baby Photography Tutorials
Hopefully these baby photography tutorials and tips will get you off to a solid start in your adventures in getting a good shot. From personal experience, we can tell you that baby photography remains one of the most challenging photography genres, but also one of the most meaningful, loved and satisfying ones too. So enjoy your forays into the world of photographing babies and share any good shots you get in the comments!