Shooting babies is something most photographers dread, but with a little planning and consideration it can be both fun and relatively painfree for both photographer and baby.

Some of the basic rules to follow are: Have enough babies! Most babies tire quickly, so they must have short sessions. It is better to book more babies for shorter sessions. Listen to the modelagency and to the mothers, let them suggest the time when their baby should be booked, so as to avoid conflict with nap times.

Keep the crew as small as possible and the shooting environment baby friendly. Have the shot set up, tested and approved, before the first baby even arrives. Remain calm…and instruct your client to remain calm, even if the babies start crying. Remember, if you are tense, the baby will pick that up immediately, so keep calm! If your clients gets tense and worried about their shoot, suggest that they take a coffee break. Give the crying baby a small break and let the baby get used to the situation. Use soft toys, funny voices and make faces, what ever it takes to get the shot.

If a baby, for whatever reason, does not want to play, thank the family kindly for their time and bring in the next baby. All babies are different, what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow, be inventive, playful and have fun…there is a good chance the baby will like that, and give you the shot you promised the client.

Download a PDF of my latest work with babies here:

I am very honoured to be included in ”Lürzer’s Archive 200 Best Ad Photographers Worldwide 2010/11″.

“The 2010/2011 edition once again offers you a balanced mix of established industry greats rubbing shoulders with newcomers – all of whom who were selected from a total of 6,539 submissions sent in from 48 countries.”

The book is available to buy from Lürzer’s website, if you are not one of those lucky enough to get one for free, it is Euro 29.50 and full of the best advertising photography money can buy.

Just found out I took the 3rd place in this years Prix De La Photographie in the fashion category.

This year it was images from Sofie Schnoor’s Spring Summer 2010 catalogue.

It is of course an honour to recieve such recognition, and to be in the top three, two years running.

Sunday August 15th I’ll be visiting the CPHKids fashion fair in Copenhagen. I’ll spend the afternoon shooting kids in the studio space at the fair, and you are welcome to stop by and say hello.

CPH Kids takes place 12th-15th of August 2010 and it will take place in TAP1 at Carlsberg, Ny Carlsberg vej 91 – Copenhagen V.

 Tickets available online from mid June. Price 150 DKK.

Working with a client over several seasons offers a unique opportunity to explore and develop a visual style unique to the brand. With Sofie Schnoor I have had this priviledge. The challenge is to maintain the things that worked well in previous seasons, but at the same time refine and develop the look. This year we wanted to maintain the sense of melancholia, but also let the kids be authentic, real kids. More of the poses and looks came from the kids themselves.

Look out for the catalogue in print or on the website www.petitbysofieschnoor.com.

I was asked to shoot the AW2010 collection for a very interesting new client Poppy and Ned London. We shot in an old Vicarage in a village in Nottinghamshire, an awesome location. We had real snow, lovely kids and a great day out.

It was a cold days shooting, but kids, parents and crew kept a great attitude, warmed by cups of hot tea and sandwiches.

I am fortunate enough to be included in the Creative Review Photography Annual for the second year running.

I did a Q&A with the editor Patrick Burgoyne, you can see it here:
Anders Hald shoots children

The Q&A was also printed in the December 2009 issue of Creative Review

I just learned that I won another first place in a competition, this time the prestigious Prix De La Photographie. I won the fashion category with a children’s fashion image shot for Junior Magazine in the UK.

I also won a second place in the children’s portrait category and two honourable mentions.

From Prix De La Photographie Website: “In its very successful third year, Px3 received over six thousands entries. Entries were judged by category: Advertising, Photojournalism, Book, Fine Art, Nature, and Portraiture, all which contain various sub-categories. Each jury was asked to use these criteria when reviewing the photographs: originality, creativity, excellence of execution, and overall impact.”

To see the winners gallery visit http://www.px3.fr/

After spending much of the night pacing the floor with a slightly feverish 3 month old baby, I was pleased to learn this morning that I won an award in the Photography Masters Cup – The International Color Awards. I got First Place, Outstanding Achievement in the Fashion category.

It is an added pleasure that it is not a children’s fashion category, but the main fashion category.

http://www.thecolorawards.com/

I also managed three nominations in the Portrait category.

Being asked to exhibit images at the launch of Kidvertising Agency in Århus, Denmark, was a great honour. The agency has existed for many years under the name TNJ and have developed specialized knowledge in the field of ‘Kidvertising’. http://www.kidvertising.dk/

I decided that I would come up with a project specifically for them (rather than pull images from my portfolio). The project took it’s inspiration from Tarot Cards and the idea of archetypes, but quickly developed into more of a fairytale. The production involved smoke, wind and building a Beduin-style shooting tent.

I worked with a great team in Copenhagen on this project:

Styling – Quinee Balsov

Hair and Make-up – Jens Gunnar

Models from http://www.1kid.dk/

and I was assisted by Jakob Taarnskov (http://www.jakobtaarnskov.com/)

Shooting for Sofie Schnoor is such an interesting venture. Sofie’s vison is very precise, she likes it dark, romantic and melancholic. So the challenge for me is to represent that, but also to produce images that will sell lots of her beautiful luxurious clothes. We had a great day shooting and everything went perfectly according to the plan. Here are some snapshots from the shoot, you can see more images at http://www.andershald.com/

When shooting this campaign we went looking for at good space to shoot kids in a performance/audition situation. The space needed to look the part without being cluttered and it needed to be big enough for the kind of images we had imagined. We found just the space at Arken Museum of Modern Art south of Copenhagen. Having done a few shoots together now, Ida’s team and my team work extremely well together, so we had a great day. As usual the kids were great and enjoyed ‘hamming it up’ for the camera. You can see more of the finished images at my website http://www.andershald.com/