Well, I didn’t let the Obama sticker on Lex’s tummy on November 4 (click to enlarge) ruin it for me.
35-year-old parents Zachery Bir and Amber Smirnow of Richmond, VA, took daily photos of son Alexander throughout his 1st year of postborn life and compiled them into a darling 2-minute YouTube video, “A year of Lex,” August 5.
Reported Parent Dish yesterday:

“Some friends of ours have a nicely framed set of monthly pictures of their daughter, showing her growth through her first year,” Bir told ParentDish via email. “I thought that would be a great project, and I wanted to try my hand at a year’s worth of daily shots….

Bir and Smirnow did minimal staging for the photos; they just let Lex do his infant thing, which included laughing and crying and messing with the props they provided, while the parents focused on the overall quality of the photos.
“We experimented a lot with the proper use of light,” Bir said. “You can see early on in the movie that we were using just ambient light, and that forced a lot of post-production to try and bring out an even exposure. What ended up working the best was taking the picture at the same time each day, with only natural light, and using a bounce flash for fill.” The charm of the video, of course, is that Lex is never posed; he’s a real baby, doing real baby things.
Will they do it again for Lex’s second year? Bir said no.
“We’ve stopped doing daily photos, but are continuing with weekly and monthly. For his third year, we’ll be cutting back further to monthly,” he said. “He’s very mobile now, and doesn’t have quite the patience for staying put that he had when newborn.”…

[HT: daughter Daena]