Research: Photographing Babies and Toddlers

Because I am considering taking photos of children for my photography project, I thought it would be good to do a bit of research into taking these photos. Here are a few pieces of information that I thought might be useful:

- Occasionly it is worth including a scale object in a show which you can measure the child against. This makes it easier to tell what age they are.
- For the most natural-looking shots of babies, it is important to get the camera down to their level.
- In some shots it is worth including more of the scene so that the viewer gets a real idea of just how small the toddler or baby is.
- Although it is best to shoot from the child's levelo, clutter in the background may make this impractical. A simple way to manufacture a plainer backdrop is to shoot from high up so the floor becomes the background.
- To get the baby looking towards the camera and in a good humour, you will need to help of mum or dad, who can coax and comfort the child from just out of shot.
- Babies can not sit up on their own for the first few months, but from a few days old they can be propped carefully on a chair.

(These pieces of information were gathered from the book Photographing Babies and Toddlers by John Hedgecoe. Published by Collins and Brown Limited in 2002.)