Her Eyes Open Wide Shows Her Serious Side
July 4th, 2010 by Erik Paul under Business, Personal, Photography. No Comments.
With all the amazing photographers out there who inspire me and have achieved a successful name (and niche) for themselves, one who recently comes to mind is Anne Geddes. She does adorable work and is incredibly talented with her infant compositions, stagings and props… but I wish I could ask her one thing… how does she consistently get those newborns to always be so sound asleep? Granted that is a rhetorical question, but one that would have welcomed an answer when I photographed three week old Kylie Ann [above]. I have had the fortune of photographing infants sound asleep, such as this shot here, but Kylie Ann was feisty. I’m sure the trick is to photograph these new born babies with full bellies right after they go down for a nap, but that technique wasn’t so helpful with Kylie Ann. Once the first round of strobes fired, she was wide awake and didn’t want to close her eyes the entire session. I could have ditched the flash units and gone with a time exposure, but with the low light and the way this girl was dancing around in her mother’s arms, she would have been one big blur (or I should say one little blur). In the end her mother and I feel we got a beautiful image of Kylie Ann that captures her inquisitive stare… kinda stoic and serious. We both agree that by Kylie Ann having her eyes open we get to see her as “herself” and not just “another sleeping baby.” We weeded through more than 100 photos to find the final one… there were so many cute shots it made it hard to decide, but I think the above winner will be a timeless piece to cherish. This one here is actually one of my favorites… I think it’s appropriate to call it an “outtake” as it wasn’t intended to be for layout; I just happened to snap it when her mother was repositioning Kylie Ann and she was staring into my lens. If you’ve recently birthed a bundle of joy who you want photographed by a photographer with over 13 years of experience and is much more affordable than Anne Geddes, please contact me, Erik Eikenberry… and let’s get started today!
