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I had such a great time shooting this family, they were great fun!
Comments/critiques welcomed:

Thats a happy looking baby... I think the first and last images could be portrait crops? the sand 'aint doing much for me, but I think really focusing in on that happy baby would be the ticket, you have done well to get such good expressions on the face.

The second one is very nice, i bet the mum is just out of frame waiting for the fall I think this one is my favorite, even though the facial expression is not as good as in the other pictures.

The BW one is one I would like to see in colour, the conversion has left the skin tone very close to that of teh sandstone, I would imagine the colour version would make here stand out more? If the sandstone was more like what is behind her legs it would work as BW...

thoughts?

I know it's easier said than done but, I would have preferred softer flash light on the baby. How did you light #1 and #4 ?

Great expressions and nice to see natural backgrounds and props (so unlike the horrible pixie days) - you did well filtering the sun on a bright day. #4 doesn't have the same appeal for me but I prefer the candid . Agree that even softer light (add another diffuser) would be worth investigating,
But lovely work parents should be very happy
Deb T

I really like the 3rd image, as said above, is there any chance of viewing colour version, the skin tones and sandstone look very similar. The first is a bit cool but it would work well as a tighter crop.

Great to see pictures.

geoff, i think the lighting/ exposure is the biggest issue here mate. to me looks like bare flash and its a bit cool and she's a bit underexposed. the nicest image by a long way is the one against the tree cos the light and exposure, (aswell as the colour of the green grass), sets off the baby.

Thats a happy looking baby... I think the first and last images could be portrait crops? the sand 'aint doing much for me, but I think really focusing in on that happy baby would be the ticket, you have done well to get such good expressions on the face.

I like them but would crop them tighter to focus more on the baby.

Saying that I would be happy with photos like these, it is so much hard work to get good photos of babies/kids.

THanks for the comments guys and apologies for taking a little while to get back to this.
Ok..to answer the questions:

Gerry - u were right, and Mum was standing JUST out of frame to catch bub. Will post the colour version of the sandstone one shortly.

Surenj - There was signigicant backlight on bub, so I used fill flash (BL) on shots one and four. SB800, and the diffuser that came with it at an angle (irc) of abotu 45 degrees.

DebT - filtering the sun wasn't easy, but we did manage and found some good spots. Yep, the parents are really stoked, which at the end of the day what it's about

Ok...here's the colour version of #3 -


Rooz - My fave is also the one against the tree, again, the parents do love the sand ones too though.

Craig - thanks! Keeping babie's attention/happy whilst shooting is certaily no mean feat, but I do enjoy it

Thx again one and all.

The colour version is heaps better in my opinion! maybe a fraction too much saturation, but that could be my end.

the colour sandstone is so much better than BW. I would cheat and add catch-lights though. I reckon they make a huge difference to portraits.