It was raining this when I was working photography the other day. Thankfully, this little girl’s mother had rain gear for her. But since I don’t like throwing 1 year-olds out in the cold rain we did it inside. Good thing too, because she quickly decided her rain boots were better in her hands then on her feet.
One tactic that works well with early walkers is to simply give them room to walk. The trick is to have a parent or something they want at the other end of the direction you want them to go. After that you need to be ready to get them at just the right spot. If your “photo” spot is a few steps wide, then make sure you have AI servo or your camera’s equivalent to that, so a half press keeps focusing with your moving subject. This would also be a good situation to learn to use the focus back button if your camera has one.
And as always, keep it fun or happy. Photo sessions with babies is just controlled chaos. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t but getting mad at a baby because he or she will not cooperate with your photo session is insanity. And not the fun kind of insanity.
The backdrop and flooring was black for this (and the next few posts, though the lighting changes for each session) as I was thinking something out with that setup. The lighting for this one was two strobes with Octagon Softboxes. One attached to a boom stand aimed directly over the subject and another just off to the side as a fill light.