Tech Info: Single shot with Nikon D300s using a 50mm prime; f/1.8 with ISO 200 for 1/30 of sec.
I’ve always preferred to be the father of girl kids than boys, not sure why, but thats how it has been and now I can proudly say that I’ve what I wished for – father of 2 girls.
About this shot: It was time that I started playing with portraits of kids – though I admit that I hate doing portraits. But you got to love kids, they keep things simple and they can give you a range of emotions to capture in a short period of time.
This was one of those moments. We were still in the hospital and the baby had to be woken up for feeding time and I had a hard time with it. Tried all the usual things like changing the diaper, tickling, picking her up, changing her dress, nothing seemed to get her up. I gave up and decided to just open up the blinds of the window. In case a very bright diffused sunlight. Diffused by the kind of blinds they had for the windows and to top it, the sheets used for the beds, pillows were all crisp and white – A perfect setup to play with high-key images.
Quickly undressed the little one and placed it close enough to get bright lights all around. Since she was in deep sleep, didn’t have much trouble in positioning her on a soft pillow giving enough room for the umbilical cord. After couple of takes, she was still sleeping and I couldn’t just go on, so she went back to her bassinet and I back to the laptop.
Processing: My mind was still seeing the high-key image of her, but the moment I started processing the raw file in Lightroom, I got diverted towards B&W with a tinge of sepia in it. A simple curve for bringing slight contrast and I just stopped abruptly. At that moment I felt anything more might be really pushing it. Mom was very happy with the way it turned out. The on-call nurse was quite happy too (though I’m not sure whether she was just being nice), but I’ll assume that she really did like it. I’m kinda ok with it…the reason being that its not just what I had in mind, but nevertheless I’m happy with the way it turned out to be. I’ll still go after the high-key ones, probably someday I’ll succeed in getting at least one processed to my satisfaction.