Evening star., 1949-01-23
Camera Angles ~
Technique of Shooting Baby Pictures
By Alexander J. Wedderburn
Curator Of Photography
The Smithsonian Institution

Baby and the camera make nat
ural combination. Everybody loves
baby and everybody enjoys taking
pictures of the smiles and tears,
the cute tricks and bad ones, too,
that are part of the fleeting phase
of babyhood. So if you have baby
In the house, get out your camera
and lighting equipment and start
to maintain a growing record of all
those little things that you would
like to remember. A, photo album
is just the thing to keep the pie
lures in their proper sequence and
in good condition. Remember that
baby changes from day to day, week
to week and month to month,
therefore use your camera often
and, well-you will never regret it.
You should be able to take excel
lent baby pictures with almost any
camera except the box type. The
shutter speed of a box camera Is
generally too slow to stop the ac-
tion of a fast-moving child. How
ever, if you are extremely patient
and willing to wait until you find
a good expression at the same time
that the baby is still for an instant,
you can even do surprisingly well
with the box camera. Either a
reflex or press-type camera Is
preferable. Each has the advantage
of ground-glass focus, together with
a high-speed lens and shutter
requisites for fast shooting.
AS for lighting equipment you
can use either flood lamps or flash,
although the latter is preferable.
The instantaneous flash Of a bulb
Is seldom disturbing to young
child or baby, whereas glaring and
hot flood lamps are both uncom-
Portable and in some cases fright
ening to the young subject. When
using flash bulbs, for safety's sake,
cover the bulb with handkerchief
or similar cloth, just in case the
bulb should be defective and ex-
plode with an attendant shower of
glass. The cloth will also act as
diffuser and so erase the harsh
shadows normally cast by a raw
light.
Use Plain Backgrounds.
Backgrounds should be as plain
and simple as possibl9 In the first
place you do not want any distract
ing elements in the picture that
should focus attention on your baby.
And secondly, In the event that part
of the picture is blurred due to an
unexpected movement by the baby
at the second exposure, you can still
vignette the head in printing if the
expression is good enough to justify
this procedure. (See illustration)
While on the subject Of express
sion we should point out that pic
lures of the baby need not always be
of the pretty" variety. Don't forget
that a picture of baby in towering
rage, bowling his head off is just as
much a part of his particular his
tory as the one where is Is smiling
with happiness. Babies have char
acter-and don't let any one tell
you they haven't-so try to shoot.
pictures of his varying moods and
expressions, smiles, howls. and all.
When we take a portrait Of a
erownup there is always some effort,
more or less, to pose the subject so
as to photograph him at his best.
With a baby its different-he's al
ways at his best. So instead of
worrying yourself and the baby to
death in an effort to shoot him in
pose that you think is good, just let
baby do what he wants to do and
shoot your pictures accordingly. The
more natural the pose the better
your pictures will be.
Gadgets Apt to Scare Baby.
Most babies and young children
enjoy having their pictures taken
even though they don't know what
it's all about. 1t is novel exper-
ience-a new game to them-and
they will have just as much fun as
you will. But don't scare the baby