My daughter is five years old, but I still have a few framed shots of her as a newborn hanging around the house. Whenever I look at the professionally framed photos, I wonder if I should swap out the pictures and add updated ones. I have several current photos of my daughter displayed around our home, but none are a large as the ones taken while she was an infant.
Part of me simply can’t justify taking down the baby pictures. After all, infants are notoriously challenging to score decent shots of, and the frame pictures I have of my daughter as a baby are priceless. I remember how long it took me to get those shots. Patience is key when shooting babies, and I must have spent a solid hour capturing a photo of my infant daughter stretched out on her changing table staring contently out her bedroom window. The lighting is what gave me the most trouble. I remember turning off my flash because I didn’t want to startle her or wash out the photo, so I tried to flood her room with as much natural light as possible.
I was shooting the shots solo and didn’t have the luxury of asking someone to stand over my shoulder and engage my daughter. After a while I gave up trying to get her to look at the camera. On that particular day she was captivated by something she saw out her window, so I went with it. I took a series of close up shots of my daughter’s face. I captured the details of her eyes, nose and mouth. In addition, I shot a few close ups of her tiny hands and feet.
Once I got a few decent shots, I headed over to the computer to view and edit. I ended up converting a few shots to black and white, to give them a timeless look. Some of the other images I left alone, while others I manipulated a bit to warm up the color tones. In the end I was able to print out a couple photos that captured my daughter perfectly. I paid to have them professionally matted and framed, and four years later they are still hanging on her bedroom wall. The inordinate amount of time I spent taking the photos is only a memory now, but fortunately, the images will last forever.
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