First Steps? © Tim Pannell Photography

My wife and I have 5 kids and I can distinctly remember where we were when each of those 5 kids took their first steps.  It’s an amazing event and one that is always fun to capture in a photograph.

So, to begin with……..how do you pull off this magical feet of capturing those first steps with your camera?  Can it even be done?  It’s kind of like guessing the actual time of the baby’s birth.  Who knows when or where it will happen.  What do you do if it doesn’t happen?

Initially it’s important to scout out a convenient location in your house or yard that will be ideal for the baby to actually walk, but also where the light will be co-operative.  If you know how to use strobes effectively it will greatly increase your options for a suitable location.

To be honest, you’re most likely not going to be able to capture the “actual” first steps, but if you’ve done your homework ahead of time you can get that picture within a fairly tight window of the real event.

This shot was done for my friend and his wife in their little bungalow in South Florida.  I threw up a light and shot through a white sheet with my lens set wide open at f 2 and 1/125th of a second.

You’ll notice it’s not a “baby’s first steps” shot.  That’s what we wanted, that’s what we were going for, but the baby didn’t give a rat’s behind what we wanted and insisted on crawling.  I think it was another week before he actually walked on his own, but I was back home in AZ by then.

So that’s the twist with this shot……crawling.  I could have been so insistent on getting the baby walking that I missed out on what he actually did.

As I preach quite often about taking what the subject will give you, I followed my own advice and let the little man give me a great crawling shot.

As is typical for me with kids, I was lying on the ground when I shot this.  It makes all the difference in the world to the final image.  I love the joy on the little guy’s face, it’s priceless!