Christmas Card

Well, it was that time of the year again to try to come up with a new, fun Christmas card idea.  I got really good comments and reaction to our card last year, so I knew I needed to try to do something creative again this year for our family photo.

I've been thinking about what photo I wanted to try to get this year for the last several months, trying to come up with a great idea.  I had a few different options that I could choose from, that I thought I'd be able to pull off pretty well, but when it actually came down to the time to shoot, none of them felt right. I needed snow to pull off a couple of them and it hadn't snowed at all yet this year.  So, those two ideas were out.  I had another thought that I was working on one night when our actual card came to mind.  So, I sketched it out, showed it to my wife and got to work trying to set it up.

I had to move all of the furniture out of the way in the family room in order to get access to the center and highest point of our room.  I then had to move the Christmas tree and string up some extra lights from the ceiling, which wasn't a small task.

Finally, I had to get the camera and lights all set up to try to get the photo I wanted.  I took several test shots and it just wasn't coming out the way I wanted.  But, we decided to push through anyway and try to get the final photo.  

I got my son up above the tree the way I wanted, got Paige posed and shot, got the dog's photo, then finally myself.  After looking at all of the images on the computer afterwards, I wasn't happy with the way my wife was posed and my son was slightly out of focus, which bugged me too.  So, we decided that we'd try it again the next night.

After getting it all set back up again the next night, I made some tweaks to the camera settings to get better focus and lighting, and we got to work.  After getting all of the images this time and looking at them on the computer, I was much happier with this set.  

I pulled them all together in photoshop, adjusted as I needed and we had our Christmas picture for the year!

The editing really only took about an hour, which isn't too bad for me doing a 6 shot composite and making everything merge properly.

I've gotten good feedback on the photo so far this year and it's been a lot of fun to show off to everyone.  

I hope you like it.

Just for fun, here is last years picture too.

Let me know what you think.  

T.