How to Shoot Baby Photos

Troy: Welcome back to Gear Daddy, I’m your host, Daddy Troy. Erik Doug is back and he’s gonna give us three hints to shoot your baby’s photos like a pro. Today’s episode is sponsored by baby viewer, Swedish design, Baby viewer. So Erik, thanks for coming back. Erik: Sure. Troy: And besides being a professional photographer, you also have a book called… Erik: 10 Tips To Shoot Your Baby Like A Movie Stars! Little ebook I put together that kinda gives people some tips and ways they can improve their photography. Troy: Stick around to the end of the episode, we’ll tell you how to get a discount on that book through DadLab. Erik: That’s right. Troy: Great. Super. Today we’re gonna go over three hints. Erik: Yes. Troy: Let’s just heat them. Erik: Three tips that if you follow these, your photography will just go up to the next level quite noticeably. First one, really simple, use the rule of thirds, this is a little technique that all photographers start with. If you take your picture and you look at this image which is a grid and you apply that to your picture as you take it, what you wanna do is place your subject to the inner section of any of these lines, and that adds a lot of visual interest to the image. You might have more scenery around them, or some open space, but using the rule of thirds is a great way to add some pop to your image and make them look a little bit more professional. Second hint is knowing when not to use your flash. A lot of these cameras come with built in flashes and you can do your images, a big service by actually learning when to turn them off. So, when you take a picture, your camera wants to decide, you know, whether to use a flash or whether not to, base on what it sees in the scene. And if we look at this image of my son, this is taken with window light directly behind me, but the flash was turned on, so the camera thought it needed to use the flash and it did. And what happens, while the subject was exposed well, the background has gone dark, because the camera thinks that the flash was necessary. So, just a simple act of turning the flash off and leaving the camera in automatic the whole time can give you better results. Like this one right here, where we now see that with the same window light, the subject’s illuminated much better, the background shows up and it’s just a much more pleasing image with soft lighting. So, find the switch on your camera that lets you turn the flash off and learn when you to use it and when not to and you can get some great pictures. Troy: Which brings us to our third part. Erik: The third part is when to know to use the flash, or when to turn the flash on. So, a lot of people when they take outdoor pictures think the flash probably should be off, because we’re outdoors and it’s sunny. But, you can actually get some better images by keeping the flash on. So if you maybe position your subject in some open shade, under a tree or something like that, and leave the flash on, force it to turn on, it will actually fill in the shadow areas like underneath the eyes a little bit. And you’ll get a better image because the light around your whole subject is more even. So learning when to use it, when not to, and taking it out of that automatic mode, just for the flash, not for everything else, is gonna enhance your image. Troy: Well Doug, do you have to have really professional camera in order to turn off the flash, or do you even point and shoot cameras? Erik: No, even point and shoot cameras will allow you. Usually you’ll a setting like flashes either auto or it’s on or it’s off. So, take it out of the auto mode and then experiment with on or off, and see how that affects the quality of pictures. Troy: So if you want some more hints about shooting you baby like a movie star… Erik: Yes. Troy: …gotta get your book. Erik: We have an ebook it’s called 10 Tips To Shoot Your Baby Like A Movie Stars! It’s available at Boxofficebabies.com, and you just go there and you’ll see a link to it over to your left. Troy: And the DadLab viewers get a discount. Erik: Yeah. They get the discount. It’s 20 percent off, just use the code DadLabs when you go there. Troy: DadLabs’ all one word D – A – D – L – A – B – S, of course, you’re watching Dadlabs.com. We’ll see you next time.