If you’re a parent, sharing photos of your little cutie on Instagram and Facebook is impossible to resist. There are so many special moments you want your family and friends to see and be a part of. Author and illustrator Adele Enersen took the game to the next level with multimedia photos of her son and daughter that are beyond cool. Now she’s releasing a new book called Vincent and the Night, a bedtime story with breathtaking photo collages of her son, Vincent. We talked with Enersen about how she comes up with her awesome ideas and tips for taking your own creative photos.

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How She Brainstormed Her Brilliant Idea For The Book

Enersen tells us her firstborn daughter was a sound sleeper, so Enersen started taking lots of adorable photos of her little girl in dreamland, which inspired her book, When My Baby Dreams. But her son Vincent was not a sound sleeper at all, so she had to come up with a new idea for him. “I really wanted to find his story and make a good storyline first. Then it was so obvious, I was going to make a story about all those things he liked to do instead of sleeping,” she told us.

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She says that he woke up several times throughout the night — every night — but it was actually Enersen herself who had a fear of the darkness, not little Vincent. “I’ve been afraid of the dark since I was a kid, and I still sleep with the light on if I’m sleeping alone,” she admits. “As a mother, you can’t do that. You have to be the one who runs through the darkness to your baby.” She learned as a mom that it was her job to make the darkness soothing and comforting for her baby, and this is reflected in the book.

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Behind The Scenes

Looking at her photos, you’ll see that she creates beautiful backdrops with objects that seem to be lying around the house. Here’s how it actually went down: “I took the photos of my fussing son against our white sofa, edited the background a bit and started doodling things around him. Usually his natural movements guided me,” she says.

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Enersen used her smartphone camera to start and sometimes a Canon digital camera to take the photos. Adobe Illustrator was her tool for the drawing bits. As for her favorite photo in the book, she says she loves the one of Vincent pulling the cat’s tail, hinting at a bit of mischief. “She’s a very sweet and tolerant kitty,” she says. “The kids have learned to be a lot more nice than naughty with her.”

Her Tips For You

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If you want to step up your own photo game, Enersen says her biggest tip is finding your focus. “I like to follow people who are consistent about what they post,” she says. “If you do creative baby pics, do them. If you cook stuff for your kids, post just that. Your kid’s daily hairdo? Do it. If you like to take microfashion pics of your kid’s outfit of the day, do that.” If you’re photographing babies and toddlers, Enersen says to use natural light and to just let the kids do their thing and act natural. The photos will come out way better than if you try to make them pose.

Which creative photographers do you like to follow on Instagram? Tell us in the comments, and don’t forget to check out Vincent And The Night, out April 21.