Photoshooting Baptism

Baptism is a beautiful ceremony for a family to celebrate blessing of a child. These days more people hire a professional photographer to keep this moment as beautiful photographs. 

Like a wedding ceremony in a church, baptism is also a religious ceremony happening in a church. Photoshooting religious ceremonies in a church requires more attentions in various aspects. It is important to communicate with a priest beforehand to research the rules and preferences of the particular church and priest.

First, the lighting in the church is not ideal in a lot of cases. If it is a wedding reception or a birthday party happening indoor, you can just use artificial light sources when needed. However, it becomes a little tricky in terms of a church ceremony. Over-usage of flash may disrupt the flow of sacred ceremony. I also try not to use flash if possible for a church ceremony and therefore I use bright prime lenses most of the time without flash. What does "bright prime lenses" mean? They are fixed focal length lenses with a possibility of wide-open aperture (less than f2.8 usually). I would bring something like 35mm, 50mm and 85mm lenses with f1.8 or f1.4 if possible. But you should also check the church lighting ahead and see if it is good enough with the equipment that you have. And ask the priest if the usage of flash is allowed during the ceremony for a worst case scenario. I also asked the priest and he said that it is ok to use flash. However, I did not use flash in the end for the ceremony. Modern full-frame cameras these days can handle quite high ISO without ruining the image quality. Some people freak out about a little bit of grains in images but I think that it really doesn't matter too much.

Secondly, you should also ask the priest if there is a restriction regarding where the photographer stands or moves around during the ceremony. These days, most priests understand how much the ceremonies are important to families and they are flexible with photography and videography in the church. However, some priests may have different preferences over this matter. So, it is important to communicate with the priest ahead.

Thirdly, you should always be aware where you stand or move during the ceremony even in the case that the priest told you that you can move freely. You want to have a good spot to photograph nice view of the ceremony but you also do not want to block the view for family and guests. And during the actual baptism, it might be better to give some space for the priest to do the baptism instead of standing too close to the priest. 

Like a wedding ceremony, baptism also have important moments that you shouldn't miss and keep that in mind while photographing the ceremony. Try to familiarize the steps of the ceremony beforehand. Here I want to talk about the baptism at a protestant church as an example.

I started photographing people waiting and chatting before the ceremony in the church. It is helpful to know which ones are which family members and try not to miss anyone in the photos.

I also photographed the interior of church before the ceremony started: nice decorations and the holy water table where the baptism would happen later.

There were singing and praying like regular masses. I also took pictures of people during this time, but not taking pictures all the time. Unless your camera has a silenced shutter option, shutter noises can be distracting during the ceremony, so you should try to balance it out. However, keep your camera always ready.

One of the first important images that you don't want to miss is when the priest blesses the child. The priest reach out his hand to bless the child.

Before the baptism, the parents and godmother came up to the priest and the priest read the prayer. 

And the most important part of the ceremony: Baptism. I didn't want to stand too close to the baptism, so I kept some distance with my 55mm lens. But at some point I stepped a little closer to capture the baby's face better.

There were prayer readings by family members.

And another important part that you don't want to miss is when the priest gives the baptism candle to the baby. 

After the ceremony was over, the parents and godmother stayed in the church to take some more pictures. At this point, you may be able to use flash if you want. 

People usually go to a restaurant for lunch to celebrate. If you are also hired for this part, you can take picture of a gift table, cakes and people celebrating. In this case, I also took a group photo of everyone after the lunch since the scenery near the restaurant was nice.

When I post-process the photos, I also create a B&W version of images from the ceremony and give both color and B&W images to my clients. B&W images of a religious ceremony can create a different mood and I like them too.

Are you thinking about hiring a photographer for an upcoming baptism? Contact me via the contact form in this website.