If you’ve ever had kids or have baby-sat for kids or if you’ve ever been to the children’s section of a bookstore or library you’ve seen the “I SPY” books. These are books that have photos of amazingly detailed scenes of toys that we all remember. Then they ask you to see if you can find specific objects or cars. Kids love them. Moms and dads love them. Baby sitters love them and it’s not just for kids.
I thought how difficult would it be to make an "I SPY" photo book of my own? Not hard if you follow my suggestions... just don't make the same mistakes I made!
1. First, I found a good surface or background with lots of light and away from the kids or dogs.
2. I put down white paper or some sort of background of a sheet or towel.
3. Then I had to gather all my uh... I mean my son's toys.
4. I placed them in a fun set up. Either a large traffic jam where they are all going one way or whatever.
5. I had a bunch laid out on the surface that I chose, I stepped back and examined my handy work.
6. Now where is that camera...
7. I picked a good location and a vantage point. Either bird’s eye view, car level view or worm’s eye view. Pick from the front, from the side or from the rear.
8. I grabbed a stack of books and placed my camera at that level that I chose.
9. I snapped a couple pictures and took a look. The better the quality the better the outcome. Check your owner’s manual on how to make the picture the best quality. Remember, you can download the photos that day to your computer so you don’t have to worry about the photos being so big. I was worried about not doing this right now so that I would have these massive photos on my camera and then go to a family outing.
10. I took a ton of photos but you can take however many pictures that will work for you.
11. Then I changed the set up of the toys and cars and changed the location and vantage point. I did it all over again.
12. I did it a couple more times till I thought that I had enough good photos that for a number of good pages.
13. I downloaded the pictures to my computer and in a basic graphic or photo program, like PICASA from Google which is free, I cropped the photos down to capture just a part of the photo. Then in the next page crop another part of the SAME photo and have that as the next page.
14. For the text on each page, I asked the readers “can you find the red car?” Just make sure there’s a red car in the picture!!! There were a few photos that I had to redo because the object wasn't there! D'OH!
15. Depending on the quality of your photo and the closeness of the shot you can probably get anywhere from 2-4 cropped images for each photo. That’s great and that will make your page count enough to make your photo book at Silver Street Media. (Full disclosure: I made my I SPY book from Silver Street Media.)
16. Once the photos have been created and the text entered, go to your favorite photo book site and upload them to your photo album and VIOLA! My “I SPY” style photo book is done. And best of all, they are MY toys! Uh, I mean my son's!
What do you think of this idea? Can you give any more advice? Have you done this kind of thing before?
