How to take good pictures of your baby

Taking good pictures of a baby is challenging. They're not very photogenic, and the pictures almost never turn out properly.

But thankfully, I am here to teach you the ropes on how to take really good pictures of your baby. There are a few simple tricks that will simply revolutionize your photo-taking!

The simplest technique is called the Photoshop Distraction Technique. For this, you start with a relatively unflattering picture of your baby wearing a cute outfit:

Ugh, what a crappy picture, right? It's like, helloooo, the camera is over here, Audrey. Well, don't worry: we can fix this. The next step is to add in a prop or two to distract the viewer from the fact that your baby would rather look at her toys than at the camera. For this photo, I opted to add in an AR-15 rifle, since the baby is dressed like Rambo:

To finish up, I moved the baby to a more exciting background -- in this case, completing the Rambo look by placing her in a jungle setting:

If you really wanted to go the extra mile, though, you could add in some other stuff, like maybe a velociraptor lurking in the background:

I don't have or know how to use Photoshop so I work my magic in PowerPoint. It's a poor substitute. Shut up -- the velociraptor looks totally natural, like it was really there.

Voila! The Photoshop Distraction Technique.

Another good technique is to crop the photo strategically and add age-inappropriate speech bubbles. To demonstrate this technique, we will start with this adorable photo of me and Audrey where she is all decked out in her Christmas bests:

When you remove me from the picture, you notice that Audrey appears deeply depressed. Wow, way to look happy in your Christmas picture, kid. I wanted to send this to your great grandparents, but how can I do that when you look so completely miserable?? 

Audrey hates Christmas.

But, like I said, with a few good speech bubbles, we can take this picture from zero to hero in just a few minutes. Check it out:

See? Now THESE are some picture you can send the grandparents!

Other simple techniques to get good pictures include ...

-- Putting the camera really close to the baby's face:

Tummy Time is a great opportunity for this. 

-- Catching them while they're sleeping:

I'll save this one for her wedding.

-- Catching them while they're crying:

Catching them when they're doing whatever this is:

So there you go! I hope you're now ready to take some good pictures of babies! I know it's hard, but armed with these tips, you're sure to get the shot you've been dreaming of.

HA.