So, it’s official. We will have one little princess and two tough boys running around our house. I couldn’t be more thrilled! I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for a boy. He and Lincoln will be almost exactly two years apart; which means they can share a room, have the same friends – maybe. At the very least they will attend school together, and hopefully, just hopefully, they will be buddies.
As badly as Mia wanted a sister, I thought the 4-year difference might make it difficult for them to be super close. I could be wrong, but that was my fear. Besides, if we are going to have one girl without a sister, she would be the one to have. Mia is independent, bossy, and strong-willed and will have no problems leading the pack of boys! Also, she is enough hormones for us to handle…
The Mr. and I found out the sex at the doctor, but waited until the weekend to reveal what the gender would be to the kids. I wanted Mia to have a fun memory and an exciting way to find out (Lincoln is probably too young to remember), so I decided on blue balloons in a box. And what moment could be more important to capture than this one? So I grabbed my camera and we headed out in the snow to get some pictures.
How to shoot gender reveal: Balloons in a box
I think both kids were too pre-occupied with the exciting fact that balloons were floating out of a box to notice the color of them at first. It took Mia a few minutes before she started crying and saying, “but I wanted a sister!” I tried to console her with promises of how she and I will get to spend lots of “girl time” together, getting our hair and nails done and going shopping, but it was too no avail since she replied, “But I want Daddy and Lincoln and the baby to go to the mall and shop, too!” Ok, kid. Whatever.
Shoot it yourself:
- Find a place to shoot with a non-distracting background. We chose an open field nearby.
- Supplies needed: Box (we used a Home Depot medium-sized box, but I wish we would have had a bigger one), balloons with helium (we fit 4 in our box, but it was snug)
- Put the balloons in your box and place a single piece of packing tape across the top to keep it closed. Make sure it’s easy for the kids to remove.
- The best time of day to shoot is afternoon when lighting is soft and harsh shadows are gone – unless it’s an overcast day, in which case anytime works great (Candace has some great tips on proper lighting in this guest post). I ended up shooting mid-day because it was the only available time we had, and you can definitely see how the shadows distract in the photos.
- Set your camera on a tripod and put it on “continuous shoot” – that way you can quickly snap several photos in succession as the balloons float up and out of the box. Adjust all your settings (ISO, shutter speed, aperature, focus) before the kids rip off the tape (you know how fast they go once things get started!)
- Post-processing: I shot in RAW so that I could adjust my exposure if necessary afterward (it is so hard to see settings on the camera when you are outdoors in the bright light!). After doing some adjustments in Photoshop, I used a free Photoshop action to achieve the soft, dreamy color in the photos. I also Photoshoped the box (which had “Home Depot” written on the side) so that it would be blank. Then I increased the blue/cyan color on just the balloons to make them pop (they were previously a dull light blue).
How to achieve lens flare in your photo
To achieve this photo:
- I chose a blank wall as a backdrop.
- I was lucky enough to have the sun peaking up just behind the roof, which created an awesome lens flare. The biggest two things I’ve learned when trying to shoot a lens flare is to take several shots, moving your camera around so that in post-processing you can choose the one with the best flare (depending on where the camera is, the starburst effect will change with every angle!), and to always shoot in RAW so you can adjust setting later if need be. There are some more awesome tips on shooting lens flare in this post on ZachandJody.com – and some beautiful photos to illustrate!
- I used the same Photoshop action as in the field pictures to achieve the color effect, and I (again) made the balloons more blue/cyan in color to make them stand out.
I am pretty sure that once the baby comes, Mia will be so excited to have a baby around that she won’t care what the gender is. It will be later in life when she will blame me for never giving her a sister and ruining her life. At least, that’s how I picture it happening…
Want more gender reveal ideas?
- To tell our parents, I emailed them a version of the gender reveal word search card in my Etsy shop – they had to search the puzzle to find the word “girl” or “boy”! Purchase {here}
- See how we revealed the gender of our second child, Lincoln with photos and a video {here}
- See how my friend Michelle revealed the gender of their child with a card and balloon {here}
