Technique Tuesday: “Babyface Kisses”–A Lighting and Lightroom 4 Tutorial

Good Afternoon Everybody,

Can you believe it, a brand new Technique Tuesday today.  I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve posted one. It actually felt kind of good getting the post together today, even with the computer hic-cup during the process. And since I haven't posted a while I thought to make it kind of a long Technique Tuesday too ;~) “Really, he just can’t stop talking” from LaDawn All joking aside, even though the tutorial runs about 33 minutes I think you’ll really enjoy the information. It covers Portrait Lighting and Lightroom 4 techniques.

The Shoot – The Simple Lighting Set Up

As I mention in the tutorial we recently had a portrait session at the studio. The portrait involved us photographing a newborn baby, actually young Jacob was about five or six weeks old. We photographed Jacob’s big sister about three years ago – you’ll also meet her in the lesson today.

I wanted to make the portrait process be a smooth and as comfortable as possible for the client. When working with babies you have to remember that babies just don't have the patience of older children, high school seniors, or brides and grooms. You have only a few minutes to get the photographs.  Babies also have a habit of “messing things up” in a portrait session.  And that “mess” can come from either end of the baby ;~)

We only had to deal with one mess (and upper mess) since the mother had just fed the baby right before the session.  But Jacob was in good spirits throughout the session and we got some great photographs.

The point of this tutorial is to show simplicity and ease of my lighting set up. My lighting set-up allowed me to shoot very quickly and efficiently – a necessity when photographing babies.  And the lighting set-up along with a few Lightroom tweaks allowed us to get some great images for our clients.

Keep Your Post-Production Simple!

The second part of a lesson shows those Lightroom tweaks.  I demonstrate how quickly I can use Lightroom in my postproduction to create a wonderful series of “preview” images for our clients. The techniques I demonstrate in the second part of the tutorial are not rocket science. But, what I do show you is how to work efficiently during the postproduction session so that you can get a series of images that are pretty close to the final result when producing the final images for your clients. 

The process was simple, fast, efficient, and produced results that the clients absolutely loved.  A few comments from Mom and Grandmother:

 “The pictures are amazing!!! All of them. It is going to be hard to choose. And we had so much fun visiting you too!” Jacob’s Mom

“These photographs are so beautiful they make me cry…Lilly and Jake are so precious.”  Grandma

Why not hit the PLAY button below, sit back relax, and enjoy Babyface Kisses.

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Hey gang that's it for me today. I hope you enjoy today's tutorial and guess what, I plan to be back here again this Thursday with a very cool Business Day Thursday.

Hope to see you then.

All the best, David

Related Links:

Westcott Spider Lights and 4x3Ft. Softbox [link]

MORE Photos [link]