Last fall I took this photograph of my friend Susie’s baby, Nathan. Looking back, even though it is radically different than the majority of the subject matter found in my other work, it has to be one of my favorite pieces ever. This was even further cemented when I got Daily Deviation over on Deviantart which can be seen here.

Amazingly enough, it was one of the simple photos I have ever taken in my life! I had only spent around 5 minutes taking around 50 shots of the baby and this one is the shining beacon out of all of them. It was probably the simplest setup of any shoot I’ve ever had in my life.

First, I took a futon mattress I had and slumped up against a wall and threw a black pillowcase pillow down. Still with me?
Then I took my Alienbees B400 with a fairly large softbox and placed it above where the infant’s head would be. It ended up creating such rich shadow and contrast to the skin that it just makes it feel like you’re looking at reality on your computer screen.

Such success with this infant photograph endears me to want to continue to photograph infants once in a while and just keep my online display of photographs a wee bit more varied. It makes me wonder if I have a parental instinct, afterall.