Viewers' baby pictures

Images of babies submitted by our viewers

Mellisa is not only the mother of this beautiful baby boy, but she is also the photographer who took the four wonderful pictures of him that appear on this page.

She used a Canon Rebel 2000 camera and a lot of creativity.

Unfortunately, our policy regarding images of children on PhotographyTips.com does not permit us to provide surnames or any other identifiers that could lead to the child's location, so Mellisa's last name shall have to remain anonymous. But she knows who she is, and should be very proud of the pictures she took.

Mellisa's baby was born on July 18, 2002. The hallowe'en costume portrait on the right and the picture directly below were both taken when he was three-and-a-half months old. At that age, as you can see, a baby is attentive and interested in what's going on, and also highly photogenic.

Mellisa wrote, "If you're interested in some of the simple techniques I used, here they are. I bought some nice, thick fabric and used a three-directional office lamp for lighting. For the shots where he is actually sitting, I just draped the fabric over his bouncy seat. I love doing projects like this and we both have a blast!"

Photographer and mom, Mellisa, was awaiting the arrival of a new Nikon Coolpix 4300 digital camera for Christmas when this image was taken by her. She says she generally uses either Kodak Royal Gold or Fuji Superia film.

If Mellisa's digital baby photography is as good as her film baby photography (and we can't think of any reason why it shouldn't be), there will soon be a lot more excellent pictures taken of this handsome, little fellow.

Everything a baby touches seems to be brought straight to its mouth. The red ribbon in this image (taken when he was four-and-a-half months old) probably doesn't taste very good, but the pose and the baby's attentiveness and expression make for a glorious baby picture - the kind any parent would be proud to have.

The fact that the photographer is also the baby's mother makes this and all the other pictures doubly-endearing.

Congratulations, Mellisa! You have done a wonderful job.

Title of Work: Oh Baby!

Utah photographer Trisha Gold wrote of this attention-grabbing picture: "The baby is not cross eyed. He is looking at the camera lens through the crib bars. I could have very well photographed the baby from above, and avoided the crib bars. However, I thought they may add interest to the photo. This shot was taken unexpectedly as I was actually watching the baby and hoping he would reach out through the bars. I kept shooting, and got the shot I wanted eventually. When I downloaded the pictures, it turns out this one was my favorite even over the one I had intended to get."

Isn't that often the case, that the picture we set out to take is not as good as the one we get by accident?

Trish's tip: Look for unusual perspective when taking portraits to capture personality.

Trish tells us her picture was taken with her Sony Cybershot (DSC-H20) 10.1 megapixel, 10X optical zoom. "I took the picture at f4, 1/5 sec. exposure, and ISO-400," she says. Trish used selective focusing to ensure that both the baby and the bars in front would be in focus, but the bars in back would be out of focus. "My favorite photographer is Jodi Cobb," she says. "I especially love her gallery on love, done for the National Geographic in January 2000. Her photographs seem to catch the soul of the person she is photographing. When you see the picture, you see who they are."

For me, this is only the beginning in photography!