Today’s article is both somewhat off topic and an indication of how things have changed for me in the last seven months. It certainly isn’t something I’d have done or even considered previously, but when your shooting hours are severely curtailed by parental responsibility, a photographer has little choice. I’m sure we’ll be updating this post with a ‘photographing toddlers’ amendment in a year or two, but for now, I’d like to share some of the useful things I’ve learned – I’m sure there are probably a considerable number of people in the audience who might find them useful. Feel free to wait for the next article or dig in the archives for today’s entertainment if it isn’t applicable to you. And I do promise not to turn into one of those people who does nothing but post photographs of their kids…
Firstly, I have to take my hat off to those who do this on a regular basis professionally: it’s not as easy as it looks. Babies move around more than you’d expect, erratically enough that AF tracking is pretty much stymied on just about every camera I’ve tried. On top of that, babies’ skin may be wonderfully smooth, but it’s also extremely low contrast and does not make a good AF target. They’re also more challenging subjects than wildlife or normal people: for the former, you can be stealthy, remain unobserved and get your shot.
With adults, you can engage them directly and break that fourth wall, or again make yourself stealthy and invisible. With babies…you can do neither. You cannot be so far away as to be invisible, because the perspective just looks wrong, you cannot engage them because half the time they are not paying any attention to you, but then you cannot not engage them either, because that’s precisely when they’ll choose to be distracted by whatever it is you’re doing and make a grab for your nice clean front element with with a dirty hand…
First observation: distract the subject
Though it appears the little one may not be consciously paying attention to you, at least part of them is. And by the time you get ready for the shot, they’ll change what they’re doing. On the other hand, if they’re already distracted and you sneak in from the side or over a shoulder, then your hit rate tends to be a bit higher. That’s what the mother (or grandparents, or favourite toy) is for. Unfortunately Sophie likes to make a grab for whatever is on my wrist, so I have to take it off before attempting to photograph her.
Second observation: don’t use a flash
Infant eyes are sensitive, and there have been cases noted in the past of vision damage from flashes. If you must, make sure it’s diffuse and not directly aimed at their faces. I prefer to work with natural light anyway; I’d prefer not to stun my kid with the brightness or damage her eyesight. Babies seem to look best – let’s say most realistic – in natural light, anyway. The studio flash look is just a bit too ‘polished’ and unnatural.
Third observation: manual focus actually yields a higher hit rate
My daughter, at least, moves around enough that at the distances we’re typically talking about – 1m and less – even at f4, f5.6, you’ll find the focal plane to be in the wrong place more often than not. AF will often refuse to lock at critical moments and leave you in frustration missing the moment, or with a blurry image – or no image at all because the camera is in focus priority. 3D tracking will pick up the wrong thing and you’ll get a perfectly sharp image of one ear hole, but the eye you picked will be completely out of focus. I’ve not used a camera that can adequately track yet; I’ve used some that work fine in single AF and at small enough apertures (or smaller sensors) that DOF covers any movement out of the focal plane, but that’s about it. I find I have the highest hit rate in manual focus with an EVF so I can accurately determine exactly what is in focus.
Fourth observation: waist level finders or tilting LCDs are your friend
There are two reasons for this: firstly, you might have to be the distraction if your spouse is not handy; secondly, it’s too easy to forget that child-perspective/height is a lot lower than what we’re used to. To avoid images that look as though they’ve always been shot from on top and looking down (and the attendant proportion problems brought on by that perspective), it’s necessary to get down low. Very low. And with a crawling kid, there’s no way you can get low enough even if you’re flat on your stomach. The camera has to be pretty much on the floor.
Fifth observation: only a small range of focal lengths works well
Outside that, proportions are challenged. It isn’t the same range that flatters adults, because the proportions of a baby’s features is very different; they’re more head than torso, and more torso than limbs. Portraying them in any other way results in something just ‘not looking right’ as we have deeply ingrained expectations of how babies should look. In real terms, this means I find the most flattering focal lengths to be somewhere between 28 and 60mm or so on full frame; 85 is a bit of a stretch because the compression is somewhat excessive.
Sixth observation: frame loose
Regular readers will know I am not an advocate of cropping for many reasons, mostly around revisualisation and wasted potential. However…in this case, you may have no choice. It is nearly impossible to frame tight around a rapidly moving infant because arms and legs flail everywhere, and may land up getting cut off. Better to have a bit to trim off one side than be frustrated at being too close later on.
Seventh observation: more DOF is not a bad thing
You want the kid’s skin to look soft, but not too soft, otherwise there’s no definition. I find shallower DOF really doesn’t work that well simply because everything becomes an indistinct blur, especially at baby distances – even f5.6 or f8 is enough to give you decent separation, but at the same time some insurance against subject or photographer motion between focus acquisition and capture.
Eighth observation: keep your shutter speeds up
Babies move in a twitchy way. Forget 1/x, you need at least 1/90s most of the time. More if the breastfeeding mother had coffee that morning.
Ninth observation: the technical stuff doesn’t matter
At the end of the day, a photo of your kid – or somebody else’s kid as a client – is an emotional one, not a technical one. And whilst the Ultraprints I have of Sophie are very satisfying, they don’t benefit as much from the technique as the other subjects. (I find the same is true of portraits in general: additional resolution beyond a certain point is usually not beneficial.) It goes back to the reasons why we photograph: the image appeals to us solely for the emotional impact of the subject; the rest usually be damned. But of course the image is stronger if we can hit emotional/content, compositional and technical objectives.
All of this is only true so long as the camera doesn’t get in the way – you need something fast, good in low light, with reasonably deep DOF and decent skin tones; to be honest, high resolution FF does not fit the bill here because you will have DOF and motion problems. One of the 16MP cameras like the D4/D4s will be fast enough, and allow stopping down to a decent degree; however, by the time you increase ISO to compensate for the additional DOF, end image quality isn’t that much better than say M4/3. (I actually found the E-M5II to be a fairly good camera for this purpose). The GR was also handy because it’s always ready to go; less handy because it isn’t so stable shot with one hand and no finder. The best of the lot – so far – is the Leica Q; it’s fast, has a much larger shooting envelope than the GR, stabilization, and has the handy touch to focus and shoot feature. Unsurprisingly, photographing your own kid requires a similar approach and hardware to photojournalism. Who’d have thought?
Practically, I find that most of the interesting behaviour my kid does is spontaneous; without carrying a camera 24/7 even around the house, there’s no way I’m going to be able to capture even a third of what goes on. I do have a camera handy most of the time simply because I feel as though I might miss something if I don’t; and even in the last few months the changes have been so dramatic that you are made highly conscious that all of this stuff only happens once. Many of our favourite moments saved were iPhone grabs simply because that’s what was handy – running to the other room for a camera would have resulted in moment interrupted and passed. On the flipside, I’m also trying hard not to be too obsessed with capturing it; being part of what’s happening is of course completely different. It’s a tricky balance to strike. Now where’s my iPhone gone? MT
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Ming Thein | Photographer 
Now that your child is 2 year-old, we are expecting a similar article on photographing toddlers
If you also had a two year old, you’d know you’re too busy running around preventing them from destroying things or themselves to do much photography – let alone write about doing it 🙂
Thanks, Ming. These are wonderful photos. Beautiful family. From across the room, my wife spotted the one with her covered by the white cloth, lying diagonally in the frame. Great idea. Beautiful photo. That pose could not have lasted more than 2 seconds. My favorite has to be the one with the three of you, and the relationships and point in time that is captured. We now know that the universe is not only continuing to expand, but the rate is also accelerating as well. Your sense of time is only beginning to speed up. I try as much as I can to convince my children, who now have children of their own, that they can only enjoy their kids as they are now, well,
. . . now. As in right now, not tomorrow or any other time. Every day they become a new person. They agree, but inevitably say that they are also very busy as well. All as it should be, of course.
Shooting kids is like street photography as well. You cannot make it happen, and you have to act quickly yourself. After being photographed more than any other children in history, they reach a point early where they simply won’t do it anymore. Nor should they. They’ll even look at your camera and the turn their head the exact moment you click the shutter. That’s how good they get at it. But they leave many spontaneous moments to be captured. When you say “cropping is often necessary,” I also wonder if you sometimes use the Leica Q 50mm frame lines to make sure in advance that you’re getting that focal length and perspective in the final photograph.
Thanks Larry – yes, that pose was a couple of moments and quite a bit of luck. 🙂
As I said: street, animals, babies…similar skill sets 😉
I have less issues with 28 than longer lenses – mainly because of focus and the ability for the subject to move around quite a bit in the frame before the story no longer works.
Really enjoying your site, and this article in particular. My 8-week old daughter has become (not to anyone’s surprise) my new muse, and my Fuji X-100 has once again reminded me of why I loved it so when I first got it years ago: light, small, quiet (gotta love that leaf shutter), fast lens, and pretty solid to 1600 iso (usable, anyway).
Very excited to keep learning from your articles, and if you ever want to sell one of your Hassy’s for, say, $50…I’m totally your man 🙂
-M
Haha – thanks Matthew!
Congratulations Ming for your beautiful baby !! You can not imagine how much shots I did from my daughter. Actually I started to do photos when I had my little angel. Best wishes !
Actually, I can – I’m probably guilty of more, but I’m just very selective about what I show 🙂
Lovely images, thanks for sharing! I was wondering what camera you use for this purpose in terms of video. You said in another post you sold your OM-D EM5II…
Oops, timing difference in when I wrote the posts. We still have several E-M1s for video.
Great article, MIng – terrific insights. These are all great shots, but I really love last two. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks!
What an adoring child!
Adorable maybe, but not sure about adoring…she has a very stubborn mind of her own!
I enjoyed this post because I have been photographing our granddaughter from birth to her current age of 6 while we provide day care for her. I’ve learned where in our house the light is good and situations where movement is somewhat constrained (although some of the best shots have been full on action). She will not pose. I’ve learned to be patient and wait for that brief moment when she will look up from her play and her face is bathed in light. As they get older and move faster, it is more like sports photography.
Some degree of predictability is better than none 🙂
Great post, Ming, and lovely pictures as always. It’s interesting to read this article and come away with the sense that someone as experienced as you are almost going through a “learning mode” with the newfound challenges of baby photography. It’s a good reminder to us all that our learning as artists is never over! Keep up the incredible work!
I’m glad infants only increase difficulty gradually with age, too – otherwise we’d never catch up! Fortunately the first few months are spent not moving from where you left them… 🙂
Ming…these wonderful pictures says it all…A beautiful family, the foundation of your continuing awesome work.
Thanks!
Very endearing Ming, while staying clear from those baby pictures that push the emotional content too far (to use an understatement). Babies are cute enough as they are, no need to go down the mushy road (I think we’ve all seen our share of those). I feel your environmental approach works very well here. Personally, I’d pick nr. 1 and 2 (“honest/true emotions” is what comes to mind) and 7 for its refreshing and strong composition (and its tonality). Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Dieter – I can’t stand the mush too; this feels ‘honest’ and fairly faithful to what we’re experiencing, which is the intention.
Lovely photos of your wife & kid Ming, thanks for sharing them. Some 11 years ago, we (mostly my wife) used a small Olympus C300Z, got some good shots of our Zuleikha as well.
Thanks Wolfgang – the equipment doesn’t really matter here insofar as it responds when you want it to 🙂
Adorable, she’s a lucky gal who will have beautiful life documentation in so many ways. So enjoy all your postings
Thanks!
I (like many of us it turns out!) was wondering about your personal shooting tools since I remembered that you have a baby now. I’ve had terrific success with my a6000 + SEL 35 mm, and more recently the SEL 50 mm as my boy’s turned 1. Yes, when light goes down, AF accuracy isn’t great with the 35 (better with the 50), but my on-camera bounce flash has worked beautifully for me – M with aperture of 2 or 2.8, and SS of 1/160th (max flash sync). I may not get perfectly sharp eyelashes, but then, he’s walking/waddling/running all the time, so I pretend it’s intentional artistic blur. I also use my RX100 m3 very often, but more for video and I find the larger DoF very helpful. As for curation, well, I’m working on that. My set up and the fact that I’m the extended family shooter results in way too many photos on Facebook, but I do them at grandparent’s request, so I can hardly say no.
This is fun, thank you Ming. I’m looking forward to seeing your toddler update down the road!
Thanks Sean. Personal shooting tools remain the Q (for now) and increasingly, the Hasselblad V…
Great article. I really like the comparison of babies to wildlife. That cracked me up. As well as the reference to your wife’s coffee in the morning. 🙂
🙂 It’s true!
thanks for sharing,sifu. sophie’s a real cutie, it must be tough on you to be away on ‘longish’ assignments. when i look back at the photos of my two daughters from their baby-toddler-child phase, it’s always the moment that counts first and foremost, the quality of the image is secondary; of course, if the two comes together, so much the better :).
ken
Actually, was easier at the start (sorry Nadiah!) because I would look forward to a full nights’ sleep – now, yes, it’s harder 🙂
understandably so, she’s so cuuuuuuuuuuute!
ken
In my mind (and experience with my own twin daughters, and client work woth families), it’s VERY hard to beat the Olympus E-M1/5II for babies and younger kids. Surprisingly, the face + eye-detect AF works amazingly well (I can’t emphasize this enough)- and the extra DOF From the sensor size is an asset there, as you mention- especially because if you’re shooting indoors mostly and can’t always count on ‘spontaneous moments’ happening in lots of good natural light, and you can still shoot closer to wide open but with a more forgiving DOF. Tilt-screen, IS, and small, easy-to-grab or keep nearby size all assets for baby/young toddler shots. Nice post, and it’s neat to get a little window into your life- and makes me all the more amazed that you write and work as prolifically as you do!
Fully agreed on extra DOF being an asset – as well as touch to focus/shoot and a fast response time 🙂
Random Question, when composing and capturing a moving subject with an EVF do you avoid burst modes? i find my keeper rate drops significantly after my first shot. I guess certain models might have a shorter blackout period, but i know for a fact the GR is not one of them.
I’m in single shot because a) AF tracking on EVF cams tends to be rather poor, and b) there’s no inter frame video feed, usually – so you can’t even see what’s going on.
That seems to be the case, I often use an OVF on my Cp A and just deal with using the screen for setting focus. Not ideal to say the least but at least I can frame(maybe not super accurately)after the first shot.
Congratulations, Ming! My son turned 18 months today, so I recognize the switch to ‘baby photographs’ you said you didn’t want to make, but then ended up somewhat doing. I made peace with it myself. Ultimately I’m interested in documenting life and my son is part of that. I just make sure the percentage of the subsegment ‘cute portraits’ doesn’t get out of hand. 🙂 For instance, yesterday I took him to the zoo, but because he was ill, he slept the entire time we were there. I just had fun with him. I photographed him sleeping with zebras in the background. Sleeping near the monkey cage. Sleeping on a plateau with a giraffe walking right next to him. Quite fun to see a dozen of these pictures in a series. My point is, these are photographs of my son, but they convey something not every baby picture does so I don’t think I’m too much of a ‘dad’ when I share them.
I do have a tip in terms of gear that works for me. I started out using my 5DII and the 35 1.4 ZE and 100 ZE from Zeiss. My son had lovely blue eyes in his first months and those lenses made for very rich blues. I was very happy with that and the manual focus worked too. I then made the switch to the Sony A7RII (for other reasons). I know how this might sound, but my keeper rate skyrocketed. Again, I know how it sounds, but that eye-af that I thought was a gimmick I would never use, actually works. In tracking mode! This means I can casually talk to my son (who now tends to run rather than sit), and just focus on the composition regardless of focus point while keeping the eye-af button pressed. The camera flawlessly (not a hyperbole) follows. Everyone’s standard differs and that makes communicating on these matters difficult. But I’m a stickler for in focus eyeballs and the 100 Zeiss taught me what sharpness is. The Sony gives me sharp photographs with in focus eyeballs that require a minimum of time to take. This allows me to capture moments and looks on his face that can keep the percentage of ‘cute portraits’ I share down. 🙂
Congratulations!
I have no objection to making as many baby/family images as you want, but I think some judicious curation/judgement is required before sharing. I honestly don’t think other people find them that interesting if it’s not your own child; these are probably the few images of Sophie I’ll post and then only to illustrate an article – rather than her being de-facto subject matter for everything. I understand the urge to document and record and make the most of a very transient period in life, but the audience might be limited 🙂
When I had the 7R2 I did try it (yes, with eye-AF) – but it just didn’t work for me.
Such a a wonderful article Ming. And very helpful. So a Q for every room? 🙂
Thanks Roger. A Q for every room?! Nadiah might get ideas and we’ll have a matching baby for each too :S
Great photos. Most high quality baby photos seem to be having the baby posed with other soft objects or wearing goofy clothes. Enjoyed seeing your take on the subject!
We can’t stand the goofy clothes, and well, as useful as soft objects are to distract them, Sophie will have none of it. She’ll munch on my lens cap instead. 😛
Ming, congratulations on Sophie! My son was born 4 months ago and he often likes to sit on my lap and stare at your ultraprint ‘Only the Clouds are Free’. That and ceiling fans.
Thanks 🙂
Thanks for the timely info!!! It couldn’t have happened at a better time! I will be sharing this with the two new parents to be in my life!!! Sophie looks radiant! She has outstanding parents and know it!!!
Well, her mum isn’t bad. I’m just winging it 😛
I’ve always been curious about your approach to personal photography, and always understood why you might like to keep that mostly private. All that to say, thanks for a small window into this aspect of your photography/life. My curious three year old girl recently decided that it was more fun to be on the other side of the camera, so almost every time the camera came out she was right next to me wanting to look at the screen and push the button. So I recently picked up an old Fuji xp50 shock/waterproof camera on eBay for $30. She’s having great fun with it, and it’s cheap insurance for my own camera. And it’s amazing to see how quickly they pick up on things, how she learned to hold it carefully, how to look at pictures afterwards, etc… Anyway, you have a lot to look forward to and things will change as soon or sooner than you figure it out. Thanks again, I hope this is a subject to which you will return over the years. Cheers from Arkansas.
Personal photography is my window for experimentation. I try things that might or might not work or be worth pursuing elsewhere, hence one of the reasons I seldom show those images (aside from the subject matter). I’m planning to get Sophie her own camera if the interest is there…and yes, the waterproof/shockproof/rubberized candidates are top of the list. 🙂 I think it’d make a very interesting record for them to look at later on – perhaps they’ll remember the early years we tend to forget as we get older…
That’s a good idea, she’d probably get a kick out of it when she’s older anyway. I might have to do a little culling and editing, maybe pick the top three of the twenty-two pictures she took of the back of the front car seat this morning. 🙂 It’ll be interesting to see if/how this affects generations that grow up with digital photography and ubiquitous smartphone cameras and the huge quantity of photos they’ll have to decide if they want to keep track of the rest of their life. As comedian Jim Gaffigan said, “I have more pictures of my children than my dad ever looked at me.”
Somehow I think the smartphone generation is going to miss the curation part – and this opens up a much greater debate about images becoming disposable and losing value; transient images will be consumed and forgotten quickly, and the more of these there are – just look at social media – the lower the value tends to be attached to ‘proper’ images that have been crafted with some care. Unfortunately, I think this is one of the underlying drivers of change in the professional photographic industry: whilst the sheer volume and disposability has made people more visually aware, it’s made them less able to differentiate chocolate and turds – everything is merely brown…
I feel like the transient nature of 1’s and 0’s and most folks lack of care in organization and backup might take care of the curation part whether they like it or not, and what’s going to be left for many folks is the images they’ve bothered to print… and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
On an unrelated note, I’ve found that when I sort through photos of my very active three year old, the ones that are the best quality photographs are the more serious looking ones where she is standing still, concentrating, resting, etc… when I actually had time to get the shot right to the best of my limited ability. I’m finding I have to remind myself not to cull out the lower quality but joyful action shots that may not be in perfect focus, those represent her true personality much better than the brooding contemplative sunset backlit made-for-instagram ones. Maybe I’ll learn to nail the happy action shots by the time her baby sister is mobile.
That’s quite scary in some ways – and reassuring in others 🙂
I think you’ve hit on the near-impossible golden ideal: quality AND timing AND action…makes curation easy for me – nice polished patina on the ‘delete’ key 🙂
Enjoy your work and approach! Just a comment; Adobe RGB 1998 is a wide gamut editing profile, however, it is not a destination profile for the web. The web, by convention is sRGB.
Hmm, are you certain? I believe it’s a browser limitation rather than anything else, and there are browsers that are color aware such as Safari, which in turn do not show any color shift when displaying an Adobe RGB image that has been uploaded as such. At least that has been my finding…
Hi Ming,
first time poster, but long time reader.
First of all, congrats on your baby!
I’m currently facing your same challenges, as I am a (very) proud father of an almost-9-months-old baby girl.
One of my photographic new year resolutions was to improve curation process, but I’m realizing that I’m unable to discard any of my daughter pictures. I don’t mind if some (many?) of the 12,000 images I’ve taken so far are slightly out of focus or not perfectly framed: the emotional impact of every picture is simply too strong.
Luckily, external hard disks are inexpensive nowadays 🙂
All the best to you and your family,
Cheers from Rome
Stefano
Thanks – I know what you mean about emotional impact, but even we won’t look at the 12,000 images…so some curation is definitely still required 🙂
I am sending this most informative article to all my photographer friends who do children photos. Great presentation of information.
Thanks.
Great photos and tips Ming. Thanks! Sophie looks wonderful (and Nadiah and Sophie both look great in the article’s second image). Our girl has just turned 5, and I think I have to be a bit more conscious of your tips on framing, DOF and shutter speed in particular when I try to catch her. A Leica X1 feels totally inadequate (although I have had some success zone focusing) 😀
Well, I think if she’s distracted it might work…otherwise, yes, having owned one, I agree it simply isn’t fast enough.
Great article, as always. Most of the same considerations apply to cats too (sorry, not everyone has kids!).
Sometimes I get the distinct feeling the animals are the ones doing the manipulating, though!
Oh yes !
[ Tip: T.S. Eliot, Old Possums Book of Practical Cats. ]
– – –
Thanks for taking the time to distill the technical side from so personal a subject!
“.. deeply ingrained expectations of how babies should look.
.. somewhere between 28 and 60mm or so ..”
We are all used to really see them only from a short distance, ?.
Great Photos !
Perspective/28-60: could well be, though I don’t think so…we view normal adults from moderate distances, too – yet >50 tends to be more flattering.
Well, I’m just guessing.
I think (in western society) most human contacts happen at 4-6 feet, and unless intimate we don’t get closer to study a face as we tend to do with babies.
(In the 1950:s and -60:s in Sweden women tended to crowd _very_ close around even stranger’s perambulators, they don’t now. I don’t know why.)
Maybe it’s the prominence of our noses – which is never considered on a baby’s face. 🙂
That’s true. I do tend to notice in very population-dense countries like India, the concept of personal space is very much reduced…
Good point on noses, too.
Very interesting article and congrats to the little one. My experience with our little (19 months old) one is that I take most photos (apart of IPhone of course) I do with my E-PL7 and either 17/1.8 or 25/1.8. The E-M1 is somewhat too big and scares her a bit. Unfortunately she found out what the camera is about now and runs to me when I put up the camera, often before I even took the photo:)
Thanks. I’m finding increasingly Sophie has a desire to probe glass elements…the bigger the better :S
Some lovely images of your daughter, Ming. Bet you are a proud dad! #3 is particularly striking, brilliantly lit.
I’d be prouder if I knew what I was doing and didn’t feel like I was winging it most of the time 😛
I don’t think many people do know what they’re doing. It’s not exactly something one gets to practice often.
Just excellent! Well done my friend.
Thanks!
My pleasure.
Congratulations and condolences at the same time, on your new expanded life! Our first child arrived at about the same time as digital cameras, so their history is spread over multiple archives from a whole string of cameras. Now that they are teen-agers departing into their own worlds, puppies and kittens are (briefly) replacing them, presenting some of the same challenges that you describe — distraction, poking at the lens, general jitteriness. This was a great post, with usefull ideas and some inspiring shots.
scott
Life changes, that’s for sure – a lot of things we took for granted previously are now luxuries, like a leisurely meal together…
You always take the photos to the next level, whatever the subject. Truly inspiring 🙂
Thanks Manu!
Congratulations Ming! This might (hopefully) be a typo:
“I’d prefer to stun my kid with the brightness or damage her eyesight”
😉
Oops, it’s missing a NOT! 😛
Great article, and thank you for sharing. How life changes, and photography with it! This is a kind of photography that I do a lot, but do not share much outside family. It is what I call organic photography – photographing life – it also has a strong emotional aspect. There is a limit to how satisfying photography of cityscapes, high-rise buildings with reflections etc. can be, this is rewarding on a different level, and in some cases even appreciated by the subjects 😉 Looking forward to follow Sophie the coming years!
Agreed; just documenting and recording life around us can be extremely satisfying too. I do a lot of this with friends and family, but it stays for personal appreciation only. Those moments don’t mean much to anybody outside the circle, so to speak.
Out of the tens of thousands of photographs I’ve taken, the best ones I feel on a personal level, have been those of my 3 kids. Looking at them have never failed to bring me joy (and was one of the reasons my wife put up with me buying more equipment as she felt the same) 🙂 Best wishes for your lovely family and your journey ahead!
Thanks Ceasar!
I am happy for you and your family!
Sincerely,
Anatoly
Thanks Anatoly.
Wonderful article Ming. Really enjoy the photos of Sophie. Best Wishes to you and your family. – Eric
Thanks Eric!
Enjoy these years… they go by all too fast. And take this as gospel from a father and grandfather… your observations will go out the window at 2 and again at 3 and again at 4 and again and again. All part of the process of growing up. Savor every change.
Tell me about it. I wrote this a month ago and had to reschedule for various reasons, and I think things have already changed…suddenly, I’m starting to feel time passing a lot faster than it used to.
Nothing beats a loving mother and child photo. nothing. Classic and universal. beautiful soft light and color.
I admit this is extremely biased because of the subject matter, but I agree… 🙂
Beautiful baby.
Thanks!
Eagerly awaiting the ” Baby’s first camera” article. Great work.
I think that one might have to wait til she can walk, at least 😛 Right now she decides which lens to poke based on the size of its front element. Let’s say the Sigma 20 Art is right up there!
I’m speechless … I’ll leave it at that. Thanks, Ming. God bless the little one (younger than my grandson !)
I assume in a good way! 🙂
Adorable kid! I flew to Oklahoma a few weeks back to visit my 4 month old nephew and I agree fully it is not easy photographing babies! You’ve got some excellent examples here.
Thanks Ryan. I don’t show the near misses 😉
Ah, baby photography. I have a 3 year old and a 10 month old. I haven’t framed a photo for my wall in 3 years that wasn’t of my kids! My, how things change… I really enjoyed macro & manual focus with a variety if vintage glass in the early days. Now, auto focus is my friend.
Enjoy! It’s a rewarding challenge.
Indeed. I was trying to get a file good enough to make a life size Ultraprint of my daughter, and let’s say everything that is technically good enough falls flat when it comes to response time and a ten month old…