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Baby likes Wispa

My little baby, Adam, likes the new Wispa bars. Well, he enjoyed throwing this one around and almost got it into his mouth before I stopped him!

‘Course, I gobbled it down shortly afterwards and it was every bit as good as I remembered!

Wispa Bars were on sale in Ireland and the UK up until 2003 when they were discontinued but a recent “Bring Back Wispa” campaign convinced Cadbury to start making them again! Hooray!
Source: Wikipedia

My laughing baby

My little baby, Adam, was in great mood when I shot this in the Castle Hotel, Blarney a few weeks ago.

My Happy Baby

Little baby Adam passed another major milestone in his life yesterday. Last night he slept in his own room for the first time!

He slept soundly until about 3am, woke and made a bit of fuss until he fell asleep again until about 6am when he was happy enough to kick about his cot for a while until we got up and fed him.

Just over a week ago he started on solid food. That was fun!

The smiling baby

My son Adam this afternoon with Tweety Bird. He’s all cheerful and smiling for the camera!

I will so miss him and Jacinta when I’m away in San Francisco!

The happy child

It is wonderful to see a child smile and laugh and this little fella certainly was cheerful! Three buggies in one shot, tell me there isn’t an explosion in births in Ireland!

This was shot on Patrick’s Street, right in front of Boots. There’s someone eating in Abrakebabra in the background!

I found out that my Thieving Duck was used by the News of the World last Sunday without permission. Thanks Ricky for leaving that comment. I’ve emailed their newsdesk so hopefully I’ll hear back from them soon.

Adam and his baby soother

Adam is 5 weeks old today! Last Wednesday we saw his first smile, or perhaps it was trapped wind because he was just after feeding but it was a beautiful sight to behold. He has smiled since too, and was especially cheerful this morning!

Adam loves his baby soother though. He sucks on it like Maggie out of the Simpsons does. Non-stop and with feeling!
If a soother or dummy isn’t nearby and it’s available, a hair dryer works wonders for relaxing him. The sound soothes him and he can go from screaming the house down to docile and a gurgling baby in seconds when the hair dryer is switched on. It’s magic.

Technique: This is a high key portrait created using two layers.
1. Original image is the bottom layer.
2. Duplicate that layer.
3. Convert top layer to b/w using channel mixer.
4. Apply Gaussian blur to the top layer. I used a 75 pixel wide blur.
5. Change mode of top layer to screen.
6. Add white layer mask to top layer and reveal eyes from original image by painting over them with a black brush. Use an opacity of 10%.
7. Merge layers and save. Layers should be separate when resizing so you can unsharp mask the bottom layer.

Hope that is of use!

Ban Embryo Research

At the end of August last year these signs popped up around Cork City urging people to attend meetings against embryo research. In one fell swoop they reduced a very complex issue to the simple image of a smiling baby. The poster itself does have impact however.

They needn’t worry too much in Ireland. During our tour of Cork University Maternity Hospital someone asked about freezing stem cells. If the cells could be collected and stored properly then who knows? In 50 years time when a baby born today needs a heart transplant, could a new heart be grown from their own stem cells?
It doesn’t matter, under current EU law, a hospital must reach a certain standard to be legally allowed collect the cells and store them. Unfortunately the CUMH isn’t up to that standard, and this is a brand new 75m Euro facility.

It’s a boy!

Please welcome the newest member of the O Caoimh clann! Adam was born this morning at 5:51am and we couldn’t be happier!

Now I’m off to bed, I’ve had 4 hours sleep in the last 2 days.

Mother and baby on the street

A mother and her baby stroll along St. Patrick’s Street Cork. This was taken last September in beautiful Autumn weather.

This morning started with a bang when Jacinta woke me at 5am because an ear infection was bothering her so much. We went to South Doc who were absolutely useless and sent us to the Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) where we spent over two hours waiting to be seen by a doctor - the doctor who showed up explained that it was the worst time of the day to show up as they’re doing their morning rounds. We finally got a prescription from him. More fun at the CUMH!

This evening we’ll go to the maternity hospital again where Jacinta will begin the induction process. We’re both hoping it won’t be long and drawn out but it’s very likely that we’ll be parents at some stage tomorrow.

Thanks to all who have been in touch, I’m going to be busy texting after the birth!

There’s only a few days left to go before the due date so this post by Michelle Jones is timely. She points at this 3 part series on baby photography by Amber Holritz. Here’s part 2 and part 3.

An image of a child can and should serve the following purposes:
1. Appropriate likeness of the child
2. Artistic rendering
3. Historical documentation for future generations

An image of a child would ideally show:
1. Emotional connection
2. Scale
3. Reality

Great posts on the process of getting to know the family, the different shoots, and building a relationship for future business.

Further reading:

1. Photography Tips for Mom #2 - “The Sleep Newborn” describes photographing babies less than 10 days old. At that age they sleep a lot and Me Ra has some special shots. More in the tips for moms category.
2. Photographing Babies by Digital Photography School is of course an excellent read.
3. Finally, tips for submitting great photos to baby contents has a couple of good ideas for the competitive among you.