Teach it Tuesday - Family Mashup.

Every Easter we take a family picture... I sketch up a few ideas and then run them by the boss. This year we came up with a couple of cool ideas, packed up the car and headed to the beach only to be met with tsunami force wind and rain. Our plan was nixed and I was pretty grumpy.

Instead of throwing in the towel I came home, drew up a couple of concepts that would work indoors. I set up the backdrop and the lights in the living room and told the family what we were doing.

The initial photo is pretty simple - I wanted a family photos that showed some character but also the "stuff" that surrounds these photo shoots. It is usually something that I go to great lengths to hide from you so this is kind of fun for me.

Once we took a few "safe" photos I then photographed each family member doing "funny" poses on the backdrop.

The concept was - what if the parents were little and the kids were big? My first attempt was to mix and match facial features but the outcome was REALLY creepy... like, Chucky doll creepy.

The next iteration version was the one pictured here... Ya the kids are big and the parents are small but it just lacks anything interesting...

I reached the final concept basically by it being the only remaining option... the feedback on this image has been mixed with some recoiling and others really enjoying it. If you are interested in how I edit photos like these please check out the video below where I show you everything from start to end in less than 3 minutes.