Baby Photos? Really?

Well, I guess being around home in Melbourne has given me a bit more time to hang out with friends and family, and one thing that has definitely been happening to a lot of my friends is… babies. Just at that age I guess. So I’ve spent a bit more time taking shots of them.

As those who’ve followed my blog and photos over the years know, portraiture is a newer venture of mine- probably something I’ve only really started to branch into over the last few years. Baby portraiture, even more recently.

Babies are an interesting thing, photographically speaking. On the one hand, they don’t move too fast, so it’s fairly easy to frame them up. On the other, it can be hard getting them to look at the camera- and even harder to get them to smile when they do. I haven’t mastered that technique yet, that’s for sure. Patience when taking photos of babies is a must.

As always with portraits, the number one thing, above all else, is to get the eyes right. You want them to be clear, sharp, open and expressive. They also need to be lit properly. I always prefer natural light over flash photography, and candid portraiture over posed. But the best thing about photographing babies is, in my opinion, that they don’t have any of the reserves or veils that people get when you take a photo. Their eyes express pure emotion. That emotion may simply be ‘what the heck is this thing being stuck in my face?’, but it’s honest nonetheless- there’s none of the facade that big people tend to put in front of their faces.

I enjoyed taking this lot, and I hope to get many more opportunities.

Moor Advenchers of Kirk teh Kitteh, Part I

A few months back my housemate got a kitten. He’s a ragdoll and he’s called Kirk. Some of you enjoyed the photos I posted of him back then, when he was thirteen weeks old. He’s now about seven months old, and I figured it was high time to share some more photos.

Also, some people (I’m looking at you, @ShoesfromthHood) have been gently implying they would like to see more photos of Kirk teh Kitteh. So you can consider this my contribution to the #1millionkittens campaign.

I am expecting cupcakes.

And in all seriousness, he’s such a darn cute little thing to look at that I just couldn’t resist. So I went out and had a little play with Kirk in the garden yesterday afternoon. As a ragdoll he’s supposed to be an indoor cat, but he’s okay to play in the fenced back yard (as long as he doesn’t realise he can climb the gate).

Comments on the somewhat wild nature of our back garden are not required. I like to think of it as our very own Carbon Sink.

It was a long way from the easiest shoot I’ve ever done. I used my Canon EF 85mm f/1.8, one of my favourite lenses and which I adore shooting with, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere. It rocks my world when it comes to portraiture, and that crisp, shallow depth of field and huge aperture make it a joy to shoot with.

(A reminder to the non-photo-literate readers among you, ‘depth-of-field’ relates to the amount of the image, front to back (depth) either side of the point you are actually focusing on that is in focus. Shallow depth of field means that only a small amount of the photo either side of that point of focus is sharp, which is the technique which gives those pleasing-looking portraits where the subject’s face is nicely in focus but the background is all smooth and blurry).

The downside to shooting at such a shallow depth of field is that if you get your point of focus even slightly off, the bit of your photo that you want in focus, is no longer in focus. This is a challenge even at the best of times taking portraits. When you are dealing with a seven-month-old kitten which has an attention span of a fruit-fly on speed, this is a task not entirely different from trying to hit a sheet of paper with a dart, side-on, while riding a mechanical bull.

Using a variety of tricks, cajoling, and abuse (it’s a good thing Kirk’s too young to understand cuss-words) I did manage to get his attention enough times to get a handful of shots I was pretty pleased with, and which I feel capture both his beauty (he is one gorgeous-looking cat) and his cheeky, resilient and adventurous spirit.

I’ll post the second tranche of these photos on Thursday to keep the variety up. After all, I’d hate to overwhelm you with kitten cuteness.

Click some of the shots for a larger version…