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.

Christmas Lights

Ever since we got our tree up, right after thanksgiving, I had images of taking these pictures of our son. Early in the Christmas season, we were shopping for some more diapers for Isaac when we came across these Santa diapers.  They were so cute and I knew that they would be perfect for these pictures as well.  My mother-in-law knitted a santa stocking cap for Isaac as well, so with the combination of the diapers and cap, we could get some pretty awesome pictures.

The week before Christmas, my office let out early on both Thursday and Friday, so I had some extra time at home before dinner to try to get these pictures set up and taken.  I moved some of our furniture out of the way to open up some space, moved the baby gate we had protecting the Christmas Tree and plugged in an extra strand of lights for Isaac to play with.

I knew as soon as we moved the gate out of the way, he would immediately go for the ornaments as he always tries to grab them over the gate.  So, we put a few down at his level and let him go for it.

I had the camera set up to expose the way I wanted, so as soon as he started going for the tree, all I had to do was click away.  As suspected, he went for the first ornament he could get his hands on and pulled it off of the tree.  Shortly after that, we gave him a Christmas cookie and let him eat that while he was playing with and looking at the other strand of lights that we put out for him.

All in all, the shoot took less than 10 minutes, but we got some pictures that I really liked and that I was really happy with.

For the ornament shot, I had to crank up my ISO to 2,000 and even at that, it was barely enough.  My shutter speed was still a little low at 1/50s, even at f/2.2.
For the other shots, I was able to increase my shutter speed because there was extra light available due to the extra strand of lights.  So, I was able to keep ISO at 2,000, run shutter speed up to 1/125 or 1/200 at f/2.2.

I was really happy with the way that they turned out and will definitely try to get another set of these next year.

Let me know what you think.

T.