Baby A

Photographing a baby who can barely hold up his head is so much easier than trying to keep up with active older children! But I cannot imagine getting another chance to photograph as darling and as good natured a baby as A. is. My husband found this almost-4-month-old for me to try my hand at child portraiture and I learned a lot on this first attempt. I had no idea he has a 5 year old big sister until she came along for the shoot and she is just as precious as he is (and somewhat distracting while trying to focus on the baby). I tried several different set ups, even some shots in a basket like the mother wanted but A. was a little too big to fit comfortably in them. I think in this shot he looks like he is showing me what he really thinks of me and my camera! I used my 50mm 1.8 lens wide open to blur as much of the background as I could and also because the window was not letting in as much light as it does at other times of the year. I also added a flash with the softbox on camera left set at 1/128th power, for fill and to try to make the background blow out. I have no idea why the flash does not show as catchlights in his eyes like the windows do.

Camera info: Nikon D200, 50mm 1.8 lens at 1.8 and 1/90th, ISO 100, cloudy whitebalance
Post processing: cloned scratches off face, ran Touch of Light action to lighten the background, ran babyskin action to reduce red splotches, Creamsickle from Kubota at 75% opacity to soften background but masked off skin, Curves for contrast, selectively lightened dark areas of eyes with a levels adjustment, copied window catchlight to right eye as it did not have one, the Edge and the highpass filter in softlight mode for sharpening.