Recently the opportunity to do a newborn photo shoot literally fell into my lap – when my neighbour handed me this doll and suggested I use it in a photo. Made by Reborn Baby Central, it’s delightfully creepy so how could I resist?
It sat in my room for a few days mocking me with its lifelikeness and I had to continually check that it hadn’t opened its eyes while my back was turned. But eventually I grew fond of the damn thing and so I decided to photograph it as if it were a newborn (or in this case, reborn) baby. I enjoy the work that newborn photographers do but I sadly lack whatever maternal hormones are required for baby-rearing and so being able to do a baby shoot without unintentionally hurting it, upsetting it, or getting pooped on was immensely appealing. People that are parents, I salute you.
I did a little research into newborn photography techniques and learnt that with the right props, a shallow depth of field and some basic compositing skills it’s not such a tricky thing to do. Although I’m sure the actual difficulty lies in trying to keep a real life child asleep or amused.
There are a number of Photoshop tricks newborn photographers employ, like reducing skin redness, selective blurring and skin softening and I thought it was hilarious that this doll is so lifelike that it has red skin patches, wrinkles and discolouration that I needed to retouch just like a real child. I’ve also discovered how to use Photoshop’s mixer brush to retouch skin which is my new favourite thing.
Actual background and before skin retouching
Naturally, being a vampire baby I then had to do some fancy Photoshop work to give the images a dark twist. I have tried to do this tastefully as someone pointed out that people may take offence. I genuinely hope this isn’t the case and that these images can be enjoyed for the lighthearted fun they are. Let me know your favourite!
