How to Take Your Own Newborn Photos During COVID-19

Having to cancel newborn photos breaks my heart. It’s so tough for the parents, they are only ever that little, ONCE. I’ve put together a little guide on how to do your own and get some decent results. All with a cell phone! You don’t even need to have a DSLR; after all, the best camera is the one you have with you!

In the guide below there are a few things,
1. A shot list: a few of the best photos to take, if you only take a few, make it these ones! They help show how little your baby is and capture a few of the important milestones during the first couple weeks home! Don’t worry- I have photo examples so if the descriptions confuse you, just copy the photo!
2. A how-to guide to get the best light and set up your photo!

SHOT LIST

Baby on its own – put baby in a cute outfit, simple and neutral will keep the focus on baby rather than a bold colorful print.

1. Baby, full body, on a neutral surface, often your bedding works well for this.

2. Baby, full body in an infant lounger or in crib or bassinet, or all of them! This helps show scale, they grow so fast!

3. Baby, close up of face while sleeping, close up of nose, ears, hands and feet.

4. Baby, just chest up while baby is awake to get all those cute facial expressions, don’t be shy, take a TON of these!

5. Baby’s head in moms hands, and in dads hands. You want to show just how little it is!

6. Baby’s hands and feet being held by mom and dad, again showing how small they are.

7. Baby being held by mom, focus on baby, focus on them both, same for dad. Kissing baby, etc.

8. Mom nursing baby in nursery.

9. If you have a self timer or can figure out getting a few shots of the 3 of you thats always great but it can always wait until this is over and you can have someone else do it for you!

HOW TO

1. Lighting is the most important thing. Find the best light in your house, or the bedroom with the best light and use that!

2. If you take a cute photo and the light is bad, and you want to fix that, edit the photo to be in black and white! That’s kind of a one-stop fix-all for bad lighting!

3. If you are shooting on a cell phone, don’t zoom, don’t use portrait mode, all of that lowers the overall quality of the image. If you want to print the images just leave the camera as it is and move your self closer or farther from the baby.

4. Make sure the phone is reading the light properly, tap the screen to focus it and get the exposure correct, you don’t want it too bright, you want to show off all that perfect skin!

LIGHTING

1. Most of us have windows in our bedrooms, so I would start there, its an easy place to get most of the photos, now you want to have the light as flat as possible on the baby. Think about your best selfie light, its straight on facing a window. But since you cant have baby facing a window and I doubt you have a sky light over your bed, heres the easy way to get good light on baby:
   Lay baby on the bed with their side to the window, stack a bunch of pillows next to baby on the non-window side, and drape either a white towel or sheet or blanket over them, the stack should be like 3-4 pillows high if possible, this will bounce all of that natural light back towards baby and brighten up the non window side! This will work anywhere in your home near a window! If you have an assistant (husband or wife) have the just hold the towel or sheet instead of stacking pillows!

EDITING

1. Download Adobe Lightroom for Mobile from the ap store. You can edit all your cell phone photos on there. You can tweak them individually if you like or you can use my mobile presets or other mobile presets you have! Editing makes such a big difference in the photos!