Christmas 2009

This weeks theme over at TMMAPC is Christmas Past. I don't have many Christmas' past here on my computer at work, but I do have some from last year. Last year was the first Christmas with the DSLR and I was super excited to take "awesome" Christmas card photos.

I set out one Sunday, at high noon, with JJ and Woody. Gene followed along for support in keeping Woody's attention. 45 minutes later and 100+ photos and I was spent! I wasn't happy with what I had gotten. Nothing screamed "MAGIC" to me, but they weren't really that bad.

I'll share a few outtakes first before I share my entry for TMMAPC.

I took all the photos in AE mode with and ISO of 1600! Holy grainy photos batman. Yeah.... go ahead and laugh. I know better now, so at least I learned my lesson.

First up... Possessed Woody! Gene is standing behind me holding the Frisbee. Can you tell what Woody loves more than having his photo taken?



Next up... The Head-Lock. Woody just didn't want to sit still and this was JJ's attepmt to hold him. Poor kid, he tried.



And lastly, for the outtakes. This one is more a flub on my part rather than subject participation (although Woody's tongue is funny. It was like this in at least half of the photos). Check out the tilt on this one! I think my house is falling off the face of the earth!



So I knew nothing about editing last year... so I took that last one and tired to fix it up a little



And here ya go... the one (ok two) that actually made the Christmas Card. Its grainy, but its cute. I added a message about sending you hugs and kisses this holiday.



I also included this one on the card because I love this part of the property.



Skip on over to Two Moms Made a Photo Challenge and check out other Christmas' Past.

Traditions

When Gene and I first started dating, we decided to take a weekend getaway to his parents mountain house in early December. It was our first real vacation just the two of us. We took a long weekend and use it to get into the holiday spirit.

In Pigeon Forge, there is a store called, The Christmas Place. Its everything Christmas, 365 days a year. Its amazing! Well, that first year, Gene got me an ornament from there. I loved the sentiment of it and have continued every year to get one. We still go every December, but more recently I pick up the ornament when we are there in the summer so they are ready for the tree. The new ornament is always the first to go on the tree. I always try to pick out and ornament that represents something that occurred that year.

To start it off, this is the first one.

2005
A boy and girl holding hands, how sweet!

2006
This year JJ came with us to the mountains

2007
The year we moved into the house

2008
The first year we had our fireplace at Christmas. Also, Woody's first Christmas

2009
The year we got married. Gene is mine forever (insert evil laugh). Just Kidding!

And finally... 2010
Because this year, we went on a cruise!

Can you tell the year I switched to getting them in the summer. I finally let them monogram them for me. When you go in December, the line for personalization is really, really long. I never have the patience to wait.

I love this tradition. I can't really claim is as own. My mother actually started it, except she used Hallmark ornaments. She has one from every year they've been married. I think its a great tradition and its really fun to decorate the tree and travel down memory lane.

Getting in the holiday spirit

This year I feel like I know my camera enough to experiment a little with it during the holidays. You can probably tell I'm a bokeh addict and I never shoot anything with an aperture higher than 2.8 (I would go lower, but that's as low as I can go, right now).

A few weeks ago, I pondered about bokeh and shapes. My friend Melissa pointed me toward this great website. It shows you how you can make an adapter for your lens to create shaped bokeh from surrounding lights. I showed the idea to Gene and asked if his computerized laser could cut the shapes for me. (I'm worse than a preschooler with scissors). I bought some cardstock and told him the dimensions and he went to town.

Heres what they look like...he cut a variety of shapes and sizes for me, not really knowing what would work.


He made them so they go between the lens and the filter.... like so


Heres what it looks like.... I had to manually unfocus because I didn't have a subject I could put in my foreground to give me an adequate depth of field for the optimal bokeh. I was at a tree trimming party at a friends house and just couldn't wait to try. (Hopefully when we get our tree up later this week I can try out some more).



A few with a full perspective of the tree...




Gene had me be a model so we could try it with a subject in the photo.... (its dark, but you get the picture)


I found that the star shaped worked the best. The snowflake did ok, but it cut off more of the shape then I liked. The heart may have been too big and it was just and odd shaped blob, not really a heart.

Stay tuned for more pretty shaped bokeh posts!