Newborn Photography lighting requires a few skills to make your pics look good. One part of making a great image is lighting.
Understanding lighting in photography takes some planning but with some basic trial and error, but you can create beautiful photos. Using the right lighting for your newborn will ensure your photos turn out the way you want it.
Understanding your baby is also an important part of newborn photography, you need to know how to create the right lighting for your baby as well. Contrasting and ambient light useage making a huge difference in newborn photography lighting.
Lighting method
The two different lighting methods are artificial and natural light.
A light colour is important as it controls are seen around your newborn. The warmer the light the redder the light will be, you may need to pick certain times to take photos if you want to use natural light. Understanding the colour scale is also good to know as it will show emotion.
Artificial lighting can be easier in the sense as it is constant, not changing angles or colours. Lighting can lead the viewers or images to have certain feelings; often softer colours bring more emotion. Knowing how you want your picture to look like will also help you determine what method is best for you.
Contrasting
Contrasting is using different tones in your image that can be used to highlight or create textures in pictures.
Shadows help direct attention and can reveal or hide features. Shadows can give you more depth if used correctly. It adds to the contrast of your pictures. The shadows you want to have on your newborn are soft shadows, as harsh shadows will be too dark.
When taking photos, you usually want a three-dimensional contrast. Using planes and contours of your newborn photography lighting, to get an in portrait style photograph.
Using your babyβs features will give you an idea of what angles you should be taking pictures from. The shadows to look for will look like a triangle on your newborns face, giving three-dimensional contrast. In a darker room, you will want to have feathered lighting, you will not want to use the flash as the flash will bounce back the light.
In helping to create contrast in your image, you should be aware of the size of your light source as well as distance. For example, think of the moon, it is a huge light source at night but it is also a large distance away from the earth. A bigger light source with good diffusion, and closer subject, will get you a softer shadow.
Lighting can also give you the red-yellow colour casing on your babies skin, this all depends on the colour of ambient light
Moveable lighting
Artificial lighting needs to be moveable. The lighting from normal household lights may not give you the effect that you desire. This can Instead wash out the picture,
have the light at the wrong angle, or create shadows in the wrong area.
For the best results, you need to have lights set up on tripods or diffused lights that can be angled. Overhead lights can be affected by room size which can be too powerful or not direct enough. The best practice of moveable lighting is to have your lighting setup in a 45-degree angle away from your newborn. Once you have your lighting in the right position, you will find that some of the best angles will be from the top of your baby.
Conclusion
Whether you are a professional photographer or an ordinary mum, lighting is one of the most important aspects of a good photo. With this in mind, choose your lighting according to your needs and the needs of your newborn. First, you have to best lighting method according to your situation. Contrast your photo with shadows and textures, and finally using a moveable light source will give you the best results.
I hope you learnt something new in this blog article about how to set up your lighting to take amazing pictures of your loved ones.
Newborn Photography lighting is very unique as you also need to take into consideration for your babies needs.
If you want to learn more about how to photograph your kids at home click here to download this PDF.
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