Happy Holidays. This is the first Blog on my Squarespace site. Previously, before Squarespace offered blogs on this template I had my blog on www.BostonPhotographer.co . With the help from Alex at Vision Advertising we have moved the blog to here.
Here is how I produced this year's holiday card:
Holiday Card History and Concept
I've been making holiday cards since my grandmother turned me onto the tradition at about age 6. Over the years it has become more challenging to come up with a unique card. This years card started with a review of images on Google Images. This helped me come up with a concept. Once I had the concept I need to amass the elements.
A Game of Pool
On the Gables Arsenal shoot, I asked if I could photography the #2 pool ball. Which I did on the raffia provided by Winston Flowers.
A Helping Hand from Santa
Now I needed Santa. So I went to the Natick Collections. The Santa there was gracious enough to work with me. I shot him hand held with my Nikon D4 at a high ISO.
If you notice his face is not sharp due to the low light. So merged in Photoshop, the in focus hand and the in focus face.
A Family Heirloom
I then photographed, in studio, my grandfather's pocket watch and #1 house sign purchased at Home Depot on the raffia.
Merging It All Together
Next was to merge all the elements together. I quickly saw that the #1 in gold got lost so I filled it with white to accent it. The box of raffia actually ended up being even a 3rd file to gain its sharpness. Which required cleaning up and extending Santa's hand as it did not line up perfectly. Once all merged, I brought the final file into Lightroom and added a little more warmth plus a bit of painting with light (dodge and burning).
A Wreath and a Fishing Shed
Over Thanksgiving, as I distributed the Troop 12 BSA wreath (the Boy Scout Troop I support and work with) I put a wreath on the Gloucester fishing shed and took an iPhone picture. Which I subsequently used as the inside image. Bring it into Lightroom to clean up the file, correct perspective and add a little vignette (darkening edges). Finally, output it to Photoshop to add the text.
Finding A Winter Wonderland
For the back cover, I went through my stock images and found this image of the ski trail Rumble off Castlerock lift at Sugarbush. Which I increased the highlights, added whitening and clarity to in Lightroom. Then outputed again to Photoshop to add the text.
A Few Card Instruction Later...
I then downloaded the card templates from PS Print. Following their instructions, I layered the images.
Getting Ready to Print!
Uploaded the files and 5 days later the printed cards arrived. Using Microsoft Outlook and Word, mail merged, to produced the mailing labels.
A labor of love. Enjoy.