Father’s Day Photography Ideas and Animoto Giveaway
Photography is always a great gift idea for dads. These Father’s Day photography ideas should help give you some fun inspiration for making this gift idea really special for the man (or men if you include grandpas) in your life. I partnered up with a wonderful photographer in our area and friend from church, Christina Klas. I would love for you to head to her website to see her fabulous work. If you are local, I hope you’ll turn to Christina for your own photography needs. She was easy to work with and was able to capture some great pictures. I feel privileged to be able to present her work to you today. I also have a number of great tips and ideas added to the pictures. I’m also partnering with Animoto to offer you a really great giveaway just in time for Father’s Day.
Giveaway
Today’s giveaway is brought to you by Animoto. Are you familiar with this awesome site? It was actually developed by some high school friends of mine, and they are doing amazing with it. This business has been featured at PC Magazine, Wired, Bloomberg Business Week, BBC, NBC, New York Times, NBC, National Geographic and ABC. They have captured the attention of the media because what they offer is so cool, affordable and user friendly. I’ve used their slideshow services since the onset of the company. It is the number one place to go to create amazing, high quality slideshows with little effort. You do not need to be tech minded to make an impressive photo presentation. You simply upload your photos or videos, add music from your collection or theirs, and the program does the rest of the work. There are ways to customize the slide show with text and order, but it can be as simple as just adding photos and choosing a song. Please head to their site to see more, but you will understand more about how great a video you can make by viewing my Father’s Day slideshow below.
[field name=iframe]
For this giveaway, I get to offer two Plus Annual subscriptions, which is their most popular consumer offering. If you head to their pricing page you can find out more about costs for building slideshows with Animoto. They have a lite version where you can make a 30 second video for free. You will then discover how easy and appealing these slide shows really are. There are plans that are as inexpensive at $5 a month or $30 a year. They also have a slideshows with more options within their personal and business pricing plans. I think that once you try out their 30 second slideshow, you’ll be hooked to the idea and find loads of reasons to use it – for showers, birthdays, special events, end of year school events, weddings, and memorial services are just a few of the ideas. Again, I will have TWO winners. Will you be one of them? Enter now!
Father’s Day Photo Inspiration and Ideas
Add Text to Photos: I loved this picture of just the kids trying to fill daddy’s shoes. I was unsatisfied with some of the quotes I found for Father’s Day, so this is the quote I made up that tied in the role of a father as well as the picture Christina captured. Taking a photo and adding text is easy. There are online free photo editors that are easy to use. In fact, I do all of my blog photo editing with either PicMonkey or Canva. Head on over and give it a try.
Dad’s Ties and Shoes: I have seen photos of a son in his dad’s shoes before, but I hadn’t seen the ties too. I came up with the idea of jeans and white t-shirts in an urban setting. As I was wondering if the white t-shirts might be boring for all the shots, the thought of the ties crept in, and I fell in love with the idea. I love how it turned out.
Photo Collages of Individual Kids: Photo collages are easy to make with online editors as well. I made these on PicMonkey. You could do one collage with all of your children or break it up a bit like I have done in the series of three above. These collages could also be created within a collage frame itself. We will be doing some of these photos in print for my husband’s office. I love how Christina really captured the personality of my kids in these shots.
Bring Props: In the photo above, the balloons were the obvious prop. Christina, the photographer, Photoshopped in the letters on the balloons, and they turned out perfect. Actually, she Photoshopped in Corban’s balloon too since it popped. The letters on the balloons are another thing you could do on a free online photo editor. If you bring balloons, and it is a windy day, I would recommend bringing a few extra just in case you run into problems with them popping. I actually got the ideas from my little sister who had made some balloons in her Christmas card spell out joy. Other props we included were the shoes, ties, and super hero chalk bubbles. I could see adding capes to the super dad photos too.
Consider Your Setting – I know a lot of family photo shoots are taken in a park. There’s a good reason. It’s a great location. However, I would recommend thinking out of the box. We were down at the ports in our town. There were train tracks, run down buildings, lots of texture, huge columns under the bridge, stairs and more. Explore your city to find cool spots that might not be considered by everyone. Here are some possible photography locations: in the middle of the city, in your backyard, at the beach, on a farm, in a field, at the mountain, at a historical site, or in your own home.
Keep Kids Moving – Kids are squirmy little buggers. Capitalize on that by adding movement to your photos. Father’s Day is a celebration. We tried to capture that feel by getting pictures that involved them jumping, cheering, walking or interacting with one another.
Super Dad Theme – Christina came up with the idea to do a super hero theme for some of the photos. She brought the speech bubbles and even created the collage for me. I love it. I have even created this super dad card in the past, which would be great if you decided to go all the way with this theme. I’m picturing capes and masks. You could have a lot of fun with it.
Bring Motivation – I brought Jelly Bellys. Christina was super happy with my choice and so was I. She said a lot of people bring lollipops, which take a long time to eat and can make kids super sticky. A small candy option was perfect. Every successful “shot” because of cooperation earned a Jelly Belly. When doing a photo shoot you often take several of the same idea and then change locations or looks. Having a small reward dangling for each shot made the kids super cooperative and made the shot a lot of fun. Of course I’m not doing this with my kids all the time. However, on special and important occasions I like to have a little extra incentive. I didn’t deal with any behavior problems during the shots.
Here are a couple shots we used for our past Father’s day photos. I have also teamed up with Shutterfly in the past to bring you “The Shutterfly Guide to Taking Photos of Wiggly Kids” that I think you will find extremely helpful!
I love the idea of putting the kids in Daddy’s shoes. So adorable! Thank you for offering this giveaway. I’ve been wanting to try Animoto for a while, but I had no idea they had a free 30 second option. I’m going to have to go play with it 🙂
This pictures are absolutely adorable. Can’t wait to attempt to create our own like this to share with their daddy on Father’s Day!
Wow your kids are adorable! Thanks for the simple and sweet ideas , I only have one but i did benefit from some of your ideas!
Thank you so much. I’m glad you were inspired from some ideas here. Thanks for commenting.
The kids with their ties… I can’t handle it. While my husband is rarely in a tie, my dad was a suit and tie guy every day. he always let me help him pick out his tie when i was a little girl… those are priceless and powerful memories.
I love these great father’s day photography ideas! Thank you for sharing on artsy play Wednesday. We will be featuring your post in our father’s day round-up next week.
So cool! Thanks for the feature and thanks for letting me know!!
I love the balloons! So sweet!
My favorite idea is the balloons that spell out D-A-D, perfect idea with 3 kids, love it!
I adore these ideas. So cute with the ties. Thanks for linking up to the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Party. I’ve pinned your post to the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Board
Tie and Shoes is a great idea. Going to add that to my next photo session. Thanks for the idea
Thanks so much. My husband loved it and these are some of my favorite pictures of my kids. I appreciate your comments.