Spring Portrait Composites

My sister has five grandchildren and when each was a baby,

I photographed them and created a special composite portrait.

My sister ordered canvas wraps for each grandchild

and has them on a wall in her home.

The youngest grandchild lives in Cincinnati and I felt

so fortunate I got to visit when Abigail was

ten months old...perfect timing for her special composite!

The difficult part...it was March and still cold and drab outdoors.

I want to share with you how we set up and photographed

Abigail in my sister's living room in a way that you can do, too!

I brought my tri-fold white foam core poster board and a piece of white foam core.

These two items are readily available at any craft store for cheap!

Set up your scene facing a large picture window, preferably on a sunny day.

Don't shoot your subject in direct sunlight, however...wait until the sun

is NOT shining directly into the room.

My little white "studio" makes it very easy to extract Abigail from the photo

 in Photoshop and move her to a new scene.

It also reflects light onto her.

Here's what I did with that photo.

You would never guess Abigail was photographed on a drab winter day!

I switched out the yellow flower for a tulip to match the scene.

By using natural outdoor light from the window, it's easy to move 

the baby to an outdoor scene as the tones are very similar.

Try different poses and outfits!

Babies between 6 and 10 months old are ideal for this

because once you sit them down, they really don't move.

If they are antsy or fussy, give them something to hold that would go with

your scene. In this case, we had Abigail hold some fake flowers.

 As they are looking at that object, simply call

their name and CLICK!

DO NOT use added lights, especially from lamps in the room

as they will create a yellow and sometimes blue color cast that

does not mix well with outdoor backgrounds.

I purposely posed Abigail to use in this photo with the butterflies.

Add props that you can include in your composite.

Make sure they go with the scene like this woven box:

I made the adorable hat by hot-gluing flowers from a thrift store

onto a knit beanie cap.

I used the method I shared in this video tutorial

to flip out the dress in this next composite!

Having Mom nearby to help create the smiles

sure does help!

Always have an adult right by your set to spot a child.

You can shoot so many cute angles and thus a variety of

composites with this simple

white board set!

I changed the color of her outfit to match my scene using

my video tutorial.

Since we were facing a big bay window, I also 

shot a quickie using the natural window light.

All these photos for such a simple effort!

You can purchase my exclusive, high resolution Digital Backgrounds

in my Etsy Shop.

Or, shoot some of your own for compositing.

To learn how to move the baby to a new background

watch my video tutorial.

I LOVE BABIES!!!!