Creative Date ideas for 21st Century: Create a photo story

This is one of the creative date ideas you could look at when you’ve been dating someone for a while. This is because it involves taking photos and it’s not usually until after dating for a period of time that it feels right to have photos of our new partner. So, when that time comes, what better way could there be than to make a date out of it and create a digital photo story.



The first thing you'll need is a good location like a park or public garden. If you live near a beach you can of course take your date there, but there are always nice downtown spots to create a nice photo shoot. I would advise you research it a little before going just to make sure the location is ok for what you want to do, and nothing will get in your way on the day of your shoot, e.g. a big parade.



Right, we’ve sorted the location, so now we need to sort out the camera. Well, the good thing about taking photos these days is that many people have digital cameras, and many of us even have decent cameras on our mobile cell phones. So in this age of the "instant everything", this is the perfect technology for your photo shoot and you won't have to wait ages to get them processed at a local photo shop. With digital cameras you could easily take hundreds of photos in a few hours and then spend another few hours having a good laugh together going through them all – maybe over a coffee sitting at one of those street cafes. If you don’t have access to a digital camera then you’ll need to borrow one.



Once your location and camera are sorted, all you need to do is spend a few hours taking pictures of your date. Even better would be to take it in turns to photograph each other. I probably don’t need to mention it, but I will anyway just in case: please don't make it all formal - you'll find the best photos are the more relaxed ones. Also, if it is at all possible, try and get someone else you see at your location to take some photographs of you both.



So what’s next? Let’s bring this date well and truly into the 21st Century and make it really creative. There are a few options here, so you can take your pick, and maybe even do them all. The first idea is to get one of those digital photo key-rings and load your favourite ones on to it! They can be found on ebay quite cheaply and will give you a lovely frequent reminder of your perfect date whenever you want it.



The next idea is to make a photo-story movie out of your date. The software is readily available for free on the internet and sometimes already on your PC. I’ve found Microsoft PhotoStory is very esay to use and is free to download (just google it). This is quite basic but still very effective and you can add your own music to it. More flexible solutions can be either Windows Movie Maker, or iMovie if you are an apple fan, which are thrown in with a lot of PCs and MACs. These are a little more complex but well worth the effort. If you really want to show off, then why not try a free online solution offered by animoto.com. They offer built in music selector and their effects are amazing but you’ll be limited to 30 seconds of video unless you upgrade – well worth it in my opinion. If you visit my website you’ll see two videos I created using animoto, one of which is a photo story.



When you are all done playing with the technology why not upload your video to facebook or youtube so all your friends can see.



I hope you enjoy your creative dates.