Newborn babies are a particular challenge to photograph, as any non-newborn photographer who becomes a new parent finds. The tips abound — shoot in high temperatures so the baby is comfortable while undressed; if you can’t get window light, use the biggest softbox you can get hold of, and use a light meter instead of repeatedly taking test shots with your strobes. All those are easy enough to practice and prepare for. But posing — including things like swaddling the baby, positioning its limbs, and orienting him or her against the backdrop and props — requires much practice. And unlike adults, babies don’t really do well when being practiced on.
Enter Sandra and Brendon Moffatt, a couple from Australia. As newborn photographers, and having trained assistants and students, they were acutely aware of this issue: How to safely teach aspiring newborn photographers how to pose babies? And they are strong believers in ensuring infant safety.
“We’re really passionate about newborn safety and getting that voice heard, and this was our newborn safety solution,” Sandra Moffatt recently told ABC Radio Brisbane’s Craig Zonca and Rebecca Levingston.
The solution seemed obvious, but took them a long time to implement: Invent a baby mannequin! Baby mannequins have been around for a long time, for fashion, for medical use, or for CPR training, for example. Their challenge was to make a mannequin whose joints articulated in a life-like way and whose weight distribution and “floppiness” mimicked that of a real baby to allow for accurate posing practice.
After starting a Kickstarter campaign in December 2015, the Moffatts quickly discovered that their assessment of the need was correct, as backers flocked to preorder their StandInBaby mannequins, called SIB’s for short. (Two or more, they say, are called SIBlings!) Making a splash in early 2016 after exceeding their funding goals, they then proceeded down the long learning curve necessary to design the final product, produce it, and ship it to their backers.
This May, Brendon and Sandra made the news again, appearing in episode two of this season’s Shark Tank Australia. Successfully securing funding from entrepreneurs Dr. Glen Richards and Andrew Banks, they were also prominently featured in the show’s own promotional materials, scoring an unexpected PR windfall for their product, and enabling them to expand beyond photography into the medical training market.
You can now order your very own SIB from their website, starting at $850. At this point, they are only selling light-skinned SIBs, though Sandra Moffatt told this writer in an online conversation, “We have something in the pipeline and they might be coming; there’s a lot of interest in the medical industry especially in racially diverse SIBs.”
For those not ready to spend that much money for their very own StandInBaby, there are also rental options available from third-party studios. (You can also order just a head for $50! These are heads which, they say, didn’t make it through quality control, but can still be useful for posing practice. A bit spooky? Possibly.)
In any case, these StandInBabies are certain to be helpful in training and practice for newborn and family photographers. Have you used one? We’d love to hear about your experience in the comment section.
