The trick is to pre-visualize what level of work will be required in post, and to accommodate that when shooting. Multiple takes were done in order to have the highest chance of a good image of her, and to give me multiple textures to use in post later to assist in masking me out of the image. Luckily she’s a really good sport about it, and a lot of tickling and kisses between takes didn’t hurt (hint: most models do not take kindly to this, use caution). Next set of images were of me holding her over her crib in various positions.

I used a spare outtake shot of one of the stuffed animals that was nowhere near my scene as my base. This image would be the base I would use to later mask out anything I didn’t want (namely, me holding her). To start things off I needed a single image of the scene without any of the flying objects in it. I had a DIY softbox for my flash precariously balanced on the bureau off screen to the right (wirelessly triggered), and a large window directly behind the camera lighting the scene. I set up my tripod and camera (Oly E-P1 w/ 17mm f/2.8) in her room and framed up my shots. I wanted the focus to be on her and her animals, and didn’t want anything else detracting from that. In thinking about framing up the image, I liked the idea of her crib being squared up straight on in the image. I only had a rudimentary vision of what I wanted the final image to look like, but it was enough to nail down the overall idea. It only logically follows that if she was jumping out of that crib, her stuffed animals would be as well! Execution So in my head I was imagining her just bursting with happiness so much that she literally would be jumping right off her crib.

My desire to attempt this shot was born out of how cute I think my daughter is, and her personality is almost always explosively positive and joyful. My wife let me buy a tripod (for other long-exposure experiments including light painting), but only because I justified it with “a neat idea” for a picture with our daughter (the “I have a great idea for a photo of our daughter, but it will require me to buy more camera gear” defense).

Crib front view photoshop