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Beanbagandprops
Kristinausesa beanbagforhernewborn
shootsbecauseyoucanmouldthebagto
whatevershapeyouwant.Shealsohasa
selectionofsmalltowels,blanketsand
h t f li t t ff d thKristina Mack KITLIST
Kristina Mack ARPS is a photographer and educator based
in Brentwood, Essex, whose unique style has attracted
public figures and celebrities. She won Professional
Photographer of the Year in Contemporary Art in 2009.
She is also a newborn photography trainer and offers
mentoring and photography business courses. Visit
her website at http://www.tinyposers.com or follow her
on Instagram at @tinyposers.Camera and lenses
Kristina uses a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV with
the Canon 50mm f/1.2L for most of her
b h h b i h h▲
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Newborn
photographyis
usuallydonewhen
babyis asleepLighting
Kristina prefersto
shoot in natural
light using herbig
windows, and her
clients often reque
it, but for darkday
she has a Bowens
Octobox 150, whic
a 1.5-metre diam
softbox that do
good job of emu
natural daylight.‘It will usually be because they’re hungry
or windy or need a poo. You may have a
few minutes of happy wakefulness but it
won’t last long.’
In order to stack the odds in favour of
a successful shoot, preparation is key. ‘I
ask the parents to try to keep their babies
awake at least an hour before the session,
and feed them just before they leave the
house for the shoot. Most of my clients
live within an hour’s drive of my studio,
so by the time they get to me the baby is
in a deep sleep and I can start working
straight away. If I have clients coming
from further away they can feed them
when they get here. ‘I then work very
quickly, and try to get as many pictures
and as many poses as I can while they are
asleep. I start very simple, with very little
posing, and then I move baby little by
little, transitioning gradually from one
pose to another.’
It sounds like newborn photography
arguably has more in common with
stop-frame animation than it does with
other genres of portraiture. That and
bomb disposal, because before she even
starts shooting, Kristina has to very
carefully extract the babies from the car
seat they arrived in, undress them and
place them on her beanbag – all without
disturbing them. ‘In truth it is rare that
the baby will not notice any of this at all,’
Kristina admits. ‘Usually they will wake
up a little bit, so I swaddle them in the
blanket and they usually go back to sleep.’
So what happens if they don’t go back
to sleep? ‘Then we feed them and carry on
going. But if you have to stop to feed baby
during the shoot the session will take a
lot longer because you have to allow for
feeding time. So suddenly instead of the
shoot being a couple of hours long you
could be adding an extra hour or more.subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 3 August 2019 35
I always schedule my newborn sessions for
fi rst thing in the morning – around 9.30
or 10am, because they are a lot sleepier in
the fi rst half of the day, and I would never
book another shoot earlier than 2pm.
Most new parents aren’t yet fully confi dent
with the baby so I try not to stress them by
imposing a time limit.’
After taking some photos of the baby on
its back, swaddled in a blanket, Kristina
slowly removes the wrap, taking more
pictures as she goes, and using diff erent
camera angles to create as many diff erent
images as possible. Then comes the
higher-risk manoeuvre of turning the
baby from its back onto its tummy.