How-to: Our Adorable Thanksgiving Shoot

Date: November 30, 2016

Another year, another Thanksgiving. Whether your family served turkey, or went the traditional Assyrian route—serving dolma and the likes instead—you’re probably all out of leftovers, and chances are you’ve already got your tree up. But before we fully shift gears into Christmas mode, we want to share with you our adorable Thanksgiving photo shoot. If you haven’t seen the photos yet, check out our post. The children you see pictured are students of our music and art programs.

The results were adorable, and we got such great feedback from parents. Our photo booth was so effortless, we decided we’d share a quick how-to. This is a simple and fun way to capture memories at your next family event or birthday party.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

• Camera (your iPhone camera will do)
• Tri-fold board (any color, but we went with orange for Thanksgiving)
• Small chalkboard
• Chalk
• Chalk eraser (napkins work fine)
• Tape (or glue)
• Scissors
• Glue gun (optional)
• Prop printouts (optional)
• Bamboo skewers (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS: 

1. The tri-fold board will serve as your backdrop. If you’d like to include any text/images, it’s easy to do. Given that ours was a Thanksgiving shoot, we went with the text, “I am thankful for.” You can easily swap the text for a different phrase—”Happy Birthday Sargon!” for example. We printed the text, rolled up bits of tape and stuck them on the back of the letters to attach them to the board. You can choose to glue instead, but taping allows you to remove the letters should you wish to reuse the board. Also, using tape allows you flexibility if you realize you need to reposition the letters. Tri-fold boards are available anywhere that school supplies are sold, but if you’d like a specific color, chances are Michael’s or a Constructive Playthings Store will have a wider variety.
2. We set up our tri-fold board on a table and had the kids sit in front of it. Each child was asked what they’re thankful for, and we jotted it down on the chalkboard for them. They then simply posed with the chalkboard as we snapped some photos. You don’t need to be a professional to get a great shot. We bought our chalkboard from Michael’s for $5, but there are always tons in the Target dollar section.
3. In addition the chalkboard message, we decided to incorporate photo booth props. You can find tons of options on Etsy or at your local Party City for sale, but if you’ve got the time and the soda, you can easily make them yourself. We spent some time googling clip art images (for our Thanksgiving shoot, we went with: turkey, pumpkin, pie, pilgrim hat, fall leaf, corn, ties, a bow-tie/bow, and mustaches—which were hands down the most popular), copied and pasted them into a Word document, and hit print. Our only recommendation here is that you try to find clip art that are similar in theme/style. We printed our images on card-stock, and then laminated them for good measure. Using a glue gun, attach one bamboo skewer to each prop to act as the holder. If you don’t have a glue gun handy, several strips of tape should do the job.

ADDITIONAL TIPS: 

• Don’t worry about getting the perfect shot. You can always crop later.