Mr. C is quickly becoming more aware of what Mommy’s passion is. He’s starting to understand that I take a lot of pictures, of everything, for work and for fun, but better yet he’s starting to enjoy looking at them. As a result of all this he’s also [slowly] becoming a little more willing to have his picture taken. On a whim , and hoping to maybe get a few cute Valentiney (is that a word?) shots I asked Mr. C if he wanted to play ‘photo booth’ with me. To my surprise he did!
I had him help me set up our photo booth and pick out some props. If you want to know the biggest reasons that I believe this was successful it’s because…
- I let him help with the set up. His job was to find a little chair help me gather props.
- Having props helped. Lets face it, it was way more fun to sit there and play with a fake mustache or glasses than it is to just sit there and let Mommy take your picture.
That pose with that Smooch sign (found at Target dollar bins) was all his idea by the way. I just handed him the sign and said “hold it up”. He discovered it made a really good pair of glasses. 
Ok, so you want to know how I set up the photo booth right? It was easy peasy. Here’s the pull back.
I took two of our kitchen chairs and clamped a throw over them.Throws/blankets/sheets make great backdrops and they are easy to switch out. We tried a red one for awhile (keeping with our Valentine theme) but I wasn’t crazy about the results so we switched to the cream colored one. That’s it! See, I told you it was easy peasy. You can do this right? Of course you need to make sure you set up in good light. There’s a big window to my right so I set up next to that. You don’t need a lot of space. What you can’t see is there’s a couch just to the other side of us. We are not going for a full body shot, so in this case I don’t really care what the bottom of this set up looks like. Here’s a peek at the other side.
C got a little confused and thought we were taking pictures from the other side of our photo booth and he snuck in this shot. He’s so cute I just left him there. This is the exact same set up but in our dining room. In this case I moved our table out of the way to have a little more room to work. I was trying out some different spots in our house for lighting. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different locations around your house. Here you can see how I have the blanket tightly pulled and clamped to the chairs. You could use clothes pins if you don’t have clamps.
Ironically as I’m writing this I have two rolls of seamless paper sitting in boxes outside my front door (the UPS guy was actually dropping them off while we were playing “photo booth”) and a backdrop stand taking up way to much space in my bedroom. Point being, I could have done a much more sophisticated set up but to be honest with toddlers being hit or miss in volunteering their participation, well, sometimes I just don’t feel like it. A DIY backdrop does the trick most of the time. Plus, it’s a whole lot easier. Often its the impromptu pictures that I end up loving the most anyhow. Here’s one of my favorites from our session. He just looks like he got dumped or something with the big ‘ol pout and the ‘love’ sign upside down. Doesn’t it just make you think ‘down on love’? 
Even if you don’t have a ‘fancy’ camera. Even if your not big on taking pictures at all. I highly encourage you to play a little photo booth with your little ones from time to time. You may catch a few good shots. They may learn to have fun in front of the camera. (It helps if you let them take a couple pictures of you too). If you are into photography it’s a great low pressure way to practice your craft and learn a little. I had really low expectations going into this with C so I am probably exponentially excited about the outcome because of that. And… everyone might just have a whole lot of fun! Now, I can’t leave you with a pouty face Mr. C so here’s one last picture from our photo booth.
Tata! Thanks for swinging by today. If you like this post please let me know by leaving a comment, sharing it on Facebook or twitter or pinning it on pinterest. I’d love to do some more photography tips for you if you are interested!