'I left you alone with her for ONE minute!' Meet the self-titled 'World's Best Father' and his priceless viral photo project

It's the unlikely family photo album that is making dads the world over feel pretty alright about their parenting skills.



What started as one goofy picture taken by a bleary-eyed first-time father poking fun at his own cluelessness spawned a series that became a viral sensation and has now been published as a coffee table book.

But no one is more surprised at the success than the perplexed parent behind the project, Dave Engledow, who has been creating the playful images since the birth of his daughter, Alice Bee, who is now three.

'I always sort of thought – because I have a dark sense of humor – that if the photos ever did go viral the responses would be more negative,' the married man told People.

'But there's a lot of people out there who find humor in the unconventional'

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The photo that started it all: Dave Engledow took this photo as a joke three years ago to show how 'clueless, sleep-deprived and incredible exhausted' he was as a first-time dad Beek-a-boo: Confessions of the World's Best Father is a humorous testament to our collective bewilderment as to how best to raise a child What Dave Engledow thought was a humorous but innocuous attempt to capture the sleep-deprived obliviousness of being a first-time Dad became the sparkplug for a global phenomenon While some of his photos, like this one, are what they seem, Engledow's more dangerous shots are the work of Photoshop When friends and people online asked for more funny photos, the 34-year-old married man started getting creative with his photography The photos are heavily edited, which can take anywhere between one to 20 hours Engledow usually shoots his daughter, Alice Bee, first, before taking the photo of himself and editing them together The photos, which started out as fun, have since spawned a calender and now a book

The 43-year-old married man has made something of a career out of creating the wackiest dad-and-daughter scrapbook of shots with his little girl, who was six weeks old for the first, deciding photo, featuring the exhausted Engledow pouring baby's milk into his coffee.



With the key item of the first photo being the 'World's Best Father' mug, Engledow's brand was thus born.

In 2012 he released a calender which, after being flying off the shelves, came out again in 2013 as a larger run.

Now Engledow was completed a book, featuring his favorites from the beginning and a whole series of new material.

'When I first started, the idea was that I just kind of wanted to make fun of myself because I was feeling incredibly exhausted and sleep-deprived,' Engledow told BuzzFeed.

'So I wanted to capture just how clueless and sleepy I felt.'

'I think early on in the series a lot of the photos were me kind of playing out things that I was afraid of as a father.'

Engledow, the deputy director at nonprofit Working America, said he usually shoots Alice by herself and then his own shot, before editing them together.

'Sometimes she’s into it, sometimes we have to offer some serious bribes to get her to participate,' he said of his daughter's participation.

Engledow's wife and Alice Bee's mom, Jen, has started to make cameo appearances Well .... no one likes tax time Killing two birds with one stone ... The series of images has got fathers around the world chortling Engledow hopes his daughter will soon start coming up with her own ideas so it can be a true partnership Playing with fire: Engledow's photos are sarcastic and risque, without being controversial or offensive The 'scrapbook' remans a hobby for Engledow, who works as the deputy director at nonprofit Working America Images like this appeared in the 2013 calendar , called the World's Best Father photo series featuring Alice Bee Who wouldn't want a dad like this?

'It’s kind of a thing that she and I do together and sometimes it’s fun for her, and sometimes she would rather be doing anything else but that.'

'But I don’t want to be one of those parents that pushes their kids to do what I want them to do.

'If at any point she says, '‘I don’t want to do this anymore, Daddy,’' I think we’d respect that.'

But Engledow, who lives with his family in Takoma Park, Maryland, said he hopes as Alice grows older, she starts coming up with her own ideas on what she would like to do in the photos.

Confessions of the World's Best Father will be available to buy from Amazon on May 22.

