Illinois-based photographer Eric Sahrmann shot a series of funny baby portraits based on Art Director Mike Scalise’s idea of using super strong babies to raise awareness of having a healthy pregnancy.
Developed for the Milwaukee Health Department, the ‘Strong Babies’ ads featured babies in a variety of athletic poses; one posed like the Hulk, another executed a karate chop, while a third performed push ups.
He described the experience, “Some of the positions were easy to capture, but others became quite a problem. We knew that we would have to get a baby to open his mouth to look like he was screaming for the karate chop photo. We could not get anything to look good. Digitally manipulating the mouth to look like it was screaming just did not look right. Then, right when we were out of ideas and about to give up, one of the babies let out this huge yawn that I was able to quickly shoot. It ended up working perfectly for the karate baby. We were also having a hard time getting the furrowed brow for the hulk baby. One of the babies started to break down fussing and that gave us the perfect eye brows and forehead for the hulk baby. Each finished piece consisted of about 15 separate photographs composited together.”
The campaign involved a number of people, including the producer, stylist, ‘baby-wrangler’, digital artist, and the parents of the babies. The ads were well-received and ran on billboards and outdoor displays throughout the Upper Midwest, and even picked up a CLIO award.
Adorable and cheeky at the same time, they get the message across in a fun and humorous way, no doubt helped by the cute babies.
[via My Modern Met, images via Eric Sahrmann]