Experts Tips from Photographer Anne Geddes, Plus Her New Book!

Courtesy Anne Geddes

After snapping pictures of babies for over 20 years, award-winning photographer Anne Geddes has learned plenty of tricks.

She’s captured babies sleeping, cradled in their parents hands, playing in costume and more in her ever-popular photo books.

Geddes shares her passion once again in her new tome, Beginnings ($50), which examines the symbiotic relationship between nature and newborns.

“Babies are the human face of beginnings,” she says. “Every time I unwrap a newborn, even after all these years of photographing them, I am aware of the miracle before me.”

Lucky for us, Geddes has decided to share her expertise. See below for her top tips to taking beautiful photos of your kids.

More is better. Take as many pictures of your baby as you can. They grow so quickly and you will forget how tiny they once were.

Courtesy Anne Geddes

Differences are good. Celebrate what makes your baby unique — beautiful wide, dark eyes for example.

Create bonding moments. Images of multiple generations, or a close-up of a parent or grandparent’s profile alongside your baby’s face, are lovely and carry special significance. The photos I have of my girls — now in their 20s — with my husband, Kel, as they grew up are among my most treasured.

Keep your camera handy. It’s a great way to capture your child’s unique character and personality in different settings.

Make sure to join in. Remember to include yourself in some of your images. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that your children will want to know what you looked like when they were younger, and they’ll mock you for it, too!

Courtesy Anne Geddes

Comments

Not a fan of these type of photos. I much prefer babies with their eyes open.

- Deborah on December 17th, 2010

I love babies, and baby photos, but these are just a little…well, weird. Infants shouldn’t be subjected to this.

- Lola on December 17th, 2010

I agree, these are kind of unusual. I actually prefer candid photos to photos like these for everyone, not just newborns. I just think some of the poses look uncomfortable and you can’t really see the baby’s face anyway.

Now what is with that picture with the woman in the brown dress holding the baby in her hands? Is that a real baby? It looks extremely tiny and the position it has been put into looks a little fake.

- Erika on December 18th, 2010

As a photographer myself, I love these types of photos. People spend alot of money for a photographer to capture these special moments. Anne Geddes is a highly respected and famous photographer. She has amazing work, and has been doing this for many years. There’s something beautiful about a sleeping baby, a mother caressing her infant, etc. And a photographer can capture these, and make them breathtaking.

- Bobbi on December 18th, 2010

I LOVE Anne Geddes work! She is so talented, and I love her work of older children as well as the newborns. Some of her stuff is a little odd, but she’s an ARTIST and that is her asthetic.

- sarah J on December 18th, 2010

erika – the girl holding the tiny baby is “maneesha” the tiniest baby geddes photographed. maneesha is now 16 and geddes did a new shoot of her holding a premature baby – this photo is in her new book “beginnings”. from an article about the book:

The 140 photos in “Beginnings” include a 16-year-old girl named Maneesha that Geddes first photographed in 1993 as a premature baby weighing less than 2 pounds, now holding another woman’s premature child.

- amandamay on December 19th, 2010

I dont know how anyone could say anything bad about Anne Geddes work. She captures the innocense of infants and i know i would have loved to have had baby pictures like that to remember! Now that i have my own baby, i have taken him every 6 months to get professional photos- and the first photos i specifically asked to be like hers. i know my child will cherish these photos one day as i will forever!

- piclovinmomma on December 26th, 2010