About Eyes.

If you live in San Francisco, you will recognize the familiar diagonally striped glass that comprises a MUNI bus/tram shelter. As it turns out, they create great diffuse light for photos. Isn't that sweater and bear head gear texture just the best? And if the little boy looks familiar, it's because his baby pic was featured on my blog a bit over a year ago, and gosh he must've been one of The Most Amazingly Cute Babies I'd ever photographed.

A quick note on close up photos of little ones. Or anyone, really. If you scroll through my baby/tot close ups posts, they all have one thing in common - Catch Lights in the Eyes. So important to bring life to the picture. Even in shade, there will be some light reflection  in the iris at some angle. A small thing that makes a huge difference, especially in dark colored eyes - without it, eyes lose depth, and the picture doesn't have the same magnetism. Having said that, please make sure the eyes are in clear focus, unless there's some intentional focusing-on-something-else going on. None of this focusing-in-the-general-direction-of-the-face. Clear eyes will make close up portraits that much awesomer.

This might mean turning off the auto-face-finder-focus function on your camera (you know, when the little rectangles appear over faces as viewed through the lens finder). Instead, tell the camera (usually a few button presses) to use the one center-most focus rectangle only; aim that rectangle over your subject's eyeball(s) and press shutter to Autofocus.