Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Toddler Photoshoot FAIL

Last week, I was taking a few shots for Winsley's weekly picture project and decided to turn it into a little Independence Day photoshoot. I just needed one good shot of my two girls in their red, white, and blue outfits. Sounds so simple, but getting 2 kiddos to smile and look into the camera at the same time can be quite challenging. This is the photo I ended up using for my 4th of July post:
Not bad. However, this is not the original photo. Normally, I would never photoshop my girls. They are perfect the way they are and photoshopping the fat rolls and chubby chins of children is just weird (in my opinion). This situation called for some photo trickery though after Ellington decided to act like a typical 2 year old - how dare she! Here is the original photo:
A certain little toddler looks a bit too evil for a post celebrating America, but this was the best of the bunch. What's a momma to do? I just photoshopped a face from a different photo on to this one. Professional photographers use this little trick all of the time for group photos.

I'm not a huge fan of changing out baby faces every time my toddler decides to act like a toddler during a photoshoot, so if anybody has any tips for photographing kids - I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW!! Seriously. It's getting harder to the 2 year old to stay still and focus on one task at a time.

Just to show you that this really was the best of the bunch, here are a few of the many outtakes from our Independence Day photoshoot:
Photoshoots with the two of them might be nonexistent for a while. Either until Ellington outgrows this phase to constantly move or until I learn how to use my camera, so I can snap the picture without getting a blurry toddler.

Any tips? Or do you think I'm crazy for thinking I can get a decent photo of both girls together? Or maybe you just think I'm crazy for photoshopping my kiddo- that's okay to.

14 comments:

  1. OH. My. Goodness! Your babies are SOOOO cute! The fact that they love to run around be active may be one of the best things! Sure it's terrible for photo shoots...but with a DSLR that has a good shutter speed, those may be your best pictures!


    I can't get over how love-able your children are. I just want squeeze them!

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  2. Amy | Club NarwhalJuly 10, 2013 at 8:49 AM

    Your photoshop wizardry is awesome!! We definitely have a photo of my family where my little brother's face has been photoshopped from another (better) photo of him. Kids...sometimes it just has to be done. Maybe just dangle some candy in front of them? Kidding :)

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  3. This is the cutest thing!! My sister is a professional childrens photographer, so I will ask her for some good tips! http://www.giggleandclick.com/

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  4. I have a DSLR, but I haven't really taken the time I need to properly get to know it. Know any good tutorials for getting to know your Nikon? There are so many pictures that I take that would be fabulous (and unposed - my favorite) if only they weren't all blurry.

    Also, my girls get LOTS of squeezes! I just can't resist squeezing those chubby checks every day :)

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  5. I LOVE photoshop! I tend to overdo things because I get so caught up in all of the things that photoshop can fix, so I try to stick with fixing lighting issues now. But I guess my photoshop addiction will be handy for future photoshoot face swaps :)

    My husband actually does bribe her with candy. If I leave them alone, I always come home to a toddler who has consumed her body wait in candy. Hahaha

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  6. Maybe a future Top Ten Guest post by your sister in there somewhere?

    PS. Your sister's photos are gorgeous!

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  7. The best thing would be to turn your DSLR to Manual. Scary I know! But if you turn it to manual then turn your shutter speed way up...and then fix the ISO to where it's not washed out or super dark you'll be fine! I just got done with my cat cafe shoot where my shutter speed was set to 1/640 to 1/1600 for the action shots. The ISO was turned way up as well due to the weird lighting. Remember, the faster your shutter speed, the more stop action your photos will be!

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  8. I actually love the one where Ellington looks asleep and Winsley is smiling at the camera... on the blanket. So sweet. Your lil ones crack me up :)

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  9. Why did I not know about this before today?! I was playing around with my camera today and got very clear photos of a crazy 2 year old by switching to manual. I still have a lot to learn, but your little tip may have just changed my life! Thank you to pieces!

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  10. Oh man. You should spend a day with us, Taylor. Sometimes I wish we were on a reality show, so I could have video proof of some of the things she says / does.

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  11. YAY!!! It's amazing what a camera can do once you know what's going on! I cant wait to see more of your pictures. :)

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  12. Sarah here (Lilly's Mom), do not feel bad about this in the least! We photoshopped our Christmas card photo this year, because I wanted both Lilly and the dog in it, and neither of the two were ever looking at the camera at the same time. I got some good ones of each of them individually, so my husband just found a handy dandy app and we merged two photos together so that both were looking and voila! Your girls are so precious. Lilly LOVES them and talks about Ellie all the time! Anyway, just playing catch up today but love reading your blog. Keep up the great work!

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  13. PS, this does not really answer your question, but I noticed in a comment below that you were looking for a good tutorial. I took a camera class to learn how to use my camera and did not retain anything and can't read my notes, so that was a waste of money BUT one of my blogger friends posted an awesome tutorial the other day that I'm planning to try out as soon as I get a free moment: http://runninglawyer.blogspot.com/2013/07/going-beyond-point-click-part-2.html

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