I did some baby photos the other day and they turned out good, but I hated them. So, I redid them. This it worked out so much better.
There are two things going on here – a baby and light shenanigans. For starters, always talk with the parents when dealing with babies. This is key in coordinating an outfit of what you are going for. For these, I wanted a cool moody look and her mom delivered perfectly. After that, you are at the mercy of the baby. You can do every trick in the book to get that baby to smile but sometimes it just doesn’t pan out so take what you can get.
Now for lighting. This is a four-light set up. The key light is a studio strobe with an octagon softbox and the fill light is strobe with a snoot and grid on it. You can see these lights in her eyes by the way. The other two lights are where the fun is. There is a hair light on her that has an orange-ish gel on it. Then there is a speedlite directly behind her pointed towards that backdrop. The backdrop is black but the speedlite has a red gel on it so that back wall appears to be red.
Oh and yeah you see a hand holding her up. You don’t put a baby on a table and just hope she doesn’t fall off. That’s a recipe for disaster