Photo Adventures is an activity book by photographer and professional fun-maker Jan von Holleben, who reveals the secret to bending reality using nothing more than a simple smartphone and a playful approach. With the aid of props lying about the house, and a generous dose of imagination, children will discover how to fly like a superhero by turning the ground into the sky; create a ‘brain portrait’ of what’s hiding in their heads by re-photographing an existing photo; put their parents up a pole using tricks of perspective; devise an impossible pinball machine by combining some junk with a tight picture crop; and transform siblings into one-eyed, three-legged monsters with only a mirror and a sharp camera angle!

Featuring pro tips and secret tricks from von Holleben, whose trademark photos fill the book with energy, colour and creative inspiration, Photo Adventures shows that there’s more to photography than tech wizardry or applying a filter. Using just a camera phone or basic digital camera, Jan’s addictively playful projects are readily accessible, not to mention enormous fun, for the whole family

Text by: Monte Packham