Sleeping 1.5

Sleeping 1.5, originally uploaded by AjDele Photography.

This is Jaden, born last week to my friends Dave and Tanya. He’s a day old here and a week and a couple days old now. So far he mostly does what he is doing here, sleeping. I brought my camera to the hospital when we visited, baby pictures were surprisingly fun. I had never shot a baby before, and this he is just about as young as he could get here. His parents are very good friends of mine and knew what they were in for when I came with camera.

For most of these I had set up a strobe in the back of the small hospital room aimed at the ceiling; it was great, the light bounced around and seemed to come from everywhere (I love pocketwizards!). It was hard to tell if he was bothered by the flash, I dont think he really noticed. He did react a bit to the direct flash from a P/S that someone else had. Maybe he will be a natural photographer with a taste for good lighting!

I put some soft/sharp action on this in photoshop to mute the rest of the image and focus attention. I am trying to push myself to use photoshop more to enhance my images. My creative process starts looking through the lens and often ends there too. In some ways I really like that: its good or not good right from the get-go. I do give mad respect to people who can use photoshop to make quality visual art from images that have undergone extensive alteration. Thats great but its not me. Right now my eye very reacts to things that I actually see and can relate with a high “truth” value.

so I am really looking forward to taking more pictures of Jaden. I want to do some b/w. Again, even though I can do an easy conversion in lightroom/PS I have to be thinking in b/w at the capture in order for it to make sense for me. I think he will be more fun when he starts looking around, the few times I have seen them, he has some really cool eyes.

~ by ajdele on May 12, 2008.