No Babies Were Harmed In The Making Of This Portrait – A How To Guide

 

How I created this award-winning image using composites, camera angles, and post processing effects.

As a newborn photographer, it is very important to plan every setup with the baby’s safety in mind. The image above was created as an optical illusion using camera angles and post processing. For this infant’s safety, he was never actually lifted up in the air as the image appears.

The set-up:

The first thing I did was lay down a black backdrop on my ottoman. This can also be done using a newborn posing beanbag, the floor, a table or any other surface that is sturdy and safe to set a baby on.

I took the image by standing above the baby, while he was safely laying on the backdrop with his mom’s hands cradling him to create the illusion. She was simply kneeling beside my ottoman and reaching her arms across it to hold him into the pose.

The composite:

I wasn’t able to find an image that was exactly what I was looking for, so I knew I would need to combine elements of 2 different photos to achieve the best result. After making my basic adjustments to the raw files using Adobe Camera Raw, I loaded the two images into Photoshop and combined the baby’s lower half from one image with the baby’s upper half from the second image.

I achieve my composites with a variety of procedures and tools, and I’d be happy to elaborate more on that process in a future post if there is interest. Just let me know in the comment section of this post!

Shaping the illusion:

From there, I just needed to make a few more adjustments to the composited image to finish up the illusion that the baby was being held in the air. To simulate gravity’s effect on the baby, and get the perspective perfect, I used a bit of liquify and puppet warp. This also helped create the perfect squishy pose I was after.

 

 

Finishing touches:

From here it was just a matter of adding the finishing touches to create the final portrait. I touched-up Mom’s fingernails, made some level adjustments, and any other clean up that needed done.

 

Here is a final example of a similar image using a 3 month old baby:

Let me know what you think in the comments. I’d be happy to answer any questions or respond to any feedback. Thank you!

For those interested, here are links to some helpful items for these types of poses:

Newborn Posing Bean Bag

Bean Bag Filler

Black Backdrop

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Newborn Puppy Session

As a newborn photographer, I was thrilled to hear that my brother and sister-in-law had a dog that was expecting a litter of adorable little puppies. I begged them to let me play with some ideas I had and I love how everything turned out!

For the most part I tried to recreate traditional newborn portrait poses similar to ones I’ve used on babies in my studio. I kept their momma very close by and took feeding breaks frequently. Just like babies, these little ones were sleepy, cuddly, and liked the environment to be warm. It was nice to have a few extra hands on set as well to make sure the puppies were always safe, supported, and happy. For that reason, a lot of these images are composites. I am happy to share in another post how I achieve composites, just comment below if that’s something you’d like to read about.

The little bows were attached using a small pinch of dental wax. This is an easy way to get the bow situated exactly where you want it, and keep it in place!

Little puppy snuggles are so cute, and I actually found it was pretty easy to achieve these poses because they loved to cuddle together already.

And don’t forget the macro shots!

Sweet dreams little pups.

Questions? Comments? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below and will do my best to respond to each of you.

For those that are interested, the stretch wraps pictured in these portraits can be purchased here. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.