{gifts with style} Give Super Dad the Gift of Photos this Father's Day

Father's Day is just three weekends away, and dads can be hard to shop for! So why not skip the shopping and go for a more meaningful gift?! 

Today I'm sharing tips for a super simple Superman themed photo shoot to capture priceless photos that dad will treasure for a lifetime!

Last year, my husband was starting a new job the day after Father's Day - a job he chose specifically to be able to spend more time with our two young boys - so I wanted to capture some fun photos for his new office. 

On Father's Day I asked him to wear his Super Dad t-shirt {the one I purchased for him when I was pregnant the first time}, and I dressed our boys in the Superman capes that my mom had recently made for them. Then I sent them outside to play and I brought my camera along. The results were adorable!

If you'd like to capture similar photos for the special dad {or grandpa} in your life this Father's Day, here are some helpful hints...

SUPERMAN SHIRT & CAPES I am sure you can easily find a Superman shirt for dad, and capes for the kids, from lots of sources, but here are links to a few options on Amazon {with free Prime shipping!} to save you some time:

• Super Dad T-Shirt {they also have Super Mom if you want to get in on the action}
• Super Grandpa T-Shirt
• Superman satin capes for kids {avoid cheaper plastic capes - they won't photograph as well}
• Super Girl Tutu Dress-up Set {if you want something special for daddy's little girl}

SIMPLE PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS I am certainly no professional photographer, but I can share a few tips that might help you capture those special Father's Day photos:

• Shoot outside! Natural light is your best friend - BUT extremely bright light can be your enemy!
• Direct sunlight can cast very sharp, directional shadows, and is also likely to make your subjects squint too much
• It's ideal to shoot outdoors when the sky is overcast, but if the sun is bright, find a shady spot for your photos to avoid the harsh light, or wait for the sun to go behind a cloud and take advantage of the softening of the light for those few minutes
• Never put the sun directly behind your subjects because your subjects will end up looking like dark silhouettes
• When shooting outside, try to avoid distracting backgrounds, or leave room to crop them out
• I opted to take our photos in the front yard because our backyard is small and the grass is too sloped for the kids to easily run on it {two problems we are hoping to resolve this summer}. I love the way the photos came out with our older son running up and down the sidewalk to my husband, but I had to be careful to avoid cars parked along the curb, neighbors walking down the sidewalk, power lines, and trash cans. 
• There are times that things in the background can't be easily avoided. I mean, in the photo below, was I really going to stop and ask my husband and kids to recreate this moment so that I could change my angle to not get the cars and power lines in the background?! Of course not! In those cases, try to leave room to crop out background distractions.

In this photo, I got some of the cars along the curb in the right side of the photo. Although I wasn't able to crop them out completely, you can see how much less distracting it is with the photo cropped in closer to the subjects.

• Take LOTS of Photos
• One of my husbands favorite sayings is "with digital photography, film is cheap" - by meaning that with digital photography, it doesn't cost any more to take three times as many photos. So just keep shooting! Rather than waiting for the perfect photo, just keep snapping photos as you husband and kids play, and you may end up capturing a precious moment that you might have missed if you were waiting for the perfect posed shot.
• If your camera has a continuous shooting setting, turn it on for this photo shoot! This setting allows  you to take rapid, consecutive photos. Since my son was running up and down the sidewalk during our photo shoot, the continuous shooting setting allowed me to capture all the action! This setting will require you to sort through a lot more photos to find the best ones - but it can be worth it!

Happy photographing! If you decide to put together a photo shoot for the Super Dad in your life, I'd love to see you pictures! Tag me on Facebook or Instagram!

And, if you are interested, you can read my sappy post from last Father's Day about what makes my husband a Super Dad!

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