Photography - Baby Photographer
A baby photographer has one of the more challenging and yet more endearing subjects to work with. Babies are often highly photogenic and provide excellent opportunities for once in a lifetime shots yet they are also temperamental, fussy, and can be difficult to work with. An experienced baby photographer has a wide variety of tricks and techniques that they use to catch the baby smiling, giving that mischievous look, or gazing lovingly at the parents.
Baby photographers may travel to the home or may have the babies come into the studio for a photo shoot. The advantage to having a studio is that lighting, backdrop and even costumes or props can all be set up in advance. The baby photographer will then pose the baby and begin taking pictures. The more experienced baby photographers will still take several different pictures and allow the family to choose which pose they like best.
Many baby photographers work from their own studio and are self-employed. This gives them the freedom to set their own schedules or even to travel to work with different clients. Baby photographers need to have excellent communication skills, a comfort level with babies, as well as a solid photography background and training.
Common work activities include:
- Advertising services, networking with various clients and establishing new markets for their services.
- Billing, handling bill payments, paying employees as well paying accounts receivable and managing the company ledger.
- Meeting with parents and babies and developing concepts for photography sessions.
- Traveling to client houses to photograph special events such as first birthday parties or other events in the baby's life.
- Scheduling clients, developing prints, and making duplicates of prints as per client orders.
- Setting up backgrounds, lighting and equipment so that all is ready with the family arrives for the photography session.
- Monitoring inventory, repairing or replacing damaged or non-working equipment and ensuring that everything is in good working order at all times.