This is my second post in a series of Valentine’s Day DIY photo ideas.
(See the first post here! – Raining Hearts Umbrella DIY)
I really do love this one, it’s simple and sweet. Just photograph your child or yourself “blowing” paper heart kisses! This would be a great card to send out to friends and family. Or you can get extra fancy like I did and bring it to life!
First off, I cannot tell you how excited I was that my son actually listened to my directions. ALL of them. And had fun doing it. Are there Valentine’s Day miracles? If so, this was it!
I’ll start with the GIF and video because as soon as I found this idea, I knew I wanted to create a quick stop motion. This is so easy, trust me, any of you can do this. Because there are so few frames, it’s a bit of a “cheat” for stop motion… Back in college I often built stop motion animations. They are always lots of fun but can be very time consuming. This is definitely the quickest one I’ve ever created!
Read about how I did it below if you would like to create your own version!
Setup and Supplies:
– Nikon D750 with 50mm Lens
(Yes, you can do this with an iPhone!)
– Tripod
– Nikon Wireless Remote Trigger
(I’m linking to this because it is one of my absolute favorite photography tools to have on hand)
– Scrapbook Paper for the Hearts
– Scotch Tape & Scissors
– Plain Wall with Window Light
– Good Video Maker LED Light Panel
– Willing Participant
Below are are the basic steps that I took to create this adorable heart kisses photo.
To make the hearts, I used two pieces of red scrapbook paper. It’s simply a nice cardstock from Michaels. I folded it in half and cut out heart shapes until I had what felt like enough.
I then placed my camera on the tripod, set the viewfinder to “Live” and measured out my shooting area. It’s important to not have the tripod move while you are adding your hearts, so you want to make sure that you know where your viewing area starts and ends.
In the Shooting Menu on my camera, there is a “Remote Control Mode”. I set that to “Quick-Response Remote” so that as soon as I hit that remote button, it takes a photo. I could have pressed the shutter button, but there is risk in shaking the camera and then having to go back and re-align everything.
Then I took a photo, added a heart, took a photo, added a heart and so on until it made a nice “cloud” of hearts.
And THEN I brought in my kid. No way would he stand still while I shot each frame, so I figured it would be easier to composite him in afterwards, and it was. So I stood him by the heart cloud and again, used the remote trigger to snap a bunch of him blowing kisses. Like I mentioned earlier, I was thrilled that he actually listened so well to my direction! And he had fun with it, he mainly thought it was funny that I taped paper to the wall.
And without getting into the nitty gritty, I chose the images I wanted and did a quick levels adjustment in Photoshop. Because I used the remote trigger and tripod, I did not have to realign everything so it worked out very smoothly. Virtual high fives for that!
Then I imported into Adobe After Effects. Starting with the heart cloud. I think I did about 20 frames for each image. I masked out the left side with Harrison so I could place him where he needed to be because remember, in his frames, all of the hearts were already on the wall.
For the GIF, that is created in Photoshop with the timeline editor. They make it so easy to create a frame animation from your layers that you can then export as a GIF.
Part of me wants to do a full out After Effects and Photoshop tutorial but I’m not sure of the interest level in that… I’d love to know if you think it’s something I should start doing. I’m happy to share my knowledge and techniques with you!
I hope you enjoyed this Paper Heart Kisses Valentine’s Day Photo & Video DIY and the adorable images that I got out of it!
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!
You might also like:
Valentine’s Day Craft – Raining Hearts Umbrella DIY
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Tina Thomas is an award-winning Professional Family and Personal Branding Photographer & filmmaker in Chesterfield, Virginia. RVA. With a passion for capturing real, intimate and joyful moments, my experience allows me to take a laid-back approach where I can guide, observe and record genuine connection and celebrate individuality.
