Baby Photography - How to DIY?

[SumoBear]

Hi everyone,

Just like to seek some advices from people on how can I make the photos of my baby better? Be it the equipments or techniques. I am still using film SLR, Nikon FM2, because I am totally crazy over films and have been experimenting with different kind of films. All the while I have been doing street photography and it is only when my baby came into my world that inspire me to do something for my daughter. DSLR is a SHOULD have for me but I do not have the intention to get one now.

The lens that comes with my Nikon FM2 is a macro lens and a 50mm F1.8 lens. I do not have a flash and do not know how to use one, my shoot depends on natural lighting. Do I need more stuffs?

Any advise? I have posted my photos at Flickr, please comment. The photos from films are the more recent ones. Earlier ones are from various compact digital cameras.

Thanks in advance!

 

[boogle]

my suggestion is for you to do a search on the web for baby portraits to get ideas from the photo galleries of the professional studios. I took a quick glance at your flickr. Most of them are snaps in the usual daily environment. Background tends to be cluttered. You may find all you need to do to get a more professional look from your pics is to lay out a clean background. This is usually not very difficult for babies. You can use a bedsheet, large blanket, etc. Since you don't have flash, make use of natural diffused light from windows and experiment with placing your baby at different angles relative to the direction of the light. One example of a site you can look at is http://www.jcpportraits.com/the-gallery.aspx# You can also get a lot of ideas on how to pose your baby from such sites. Find some photos you like and try to reproduce them with your baby. Observe carefully how they posed the baby, and also the angle and type of lighting (this part is probably quite tricky and may need a lot of trial and error) If you find you are unable to get the kind of shots you want due to some limitation in your equipment, then you can think about adding some gear. I am also just learning. Hope this helps.