#1

#2

#3

Eh?

These took all of five minutes, by the way. Despite looks, he was only being about 40% cooperative, too. I didn’t get the location I wanted either, wanted to use the big rock wall at the cemetery but people were there doing landscaping and I didn’t want to get in the way even though I don’t think they were working where I wanted to shoot. Ah well. These little steps were off the sidewalk at a local bed and breakfast with a nice garden, so we went for it!

And I tried to do some of Elijah:

I think by now you all know how he is. :P It took me all day but I finally got one that I like:

But that’s still not our photo to be used for Christmas cards. I got another idea for those!!

Well this post has been 3 days in the making, I’ve just never found the time to finish it so I’m just going to stop talking and press Publish, after posting this little bit of fun:

Yay.

After all that, the real fun started. I came home and started turning my living room into a portrait studio. Kinda. :) I spent a lot of time digging Christmas stuff out of the basement. It reminded me that I don’t guess I decorated at all last year?? ‘Cause there was a lot of stuff I remember getting out in 2005 but not last year. Then I told Steve to go down with the flashlight and clean up the two dead mice I saw on the shelf… only… they both turned out to be the ends of power cords. Oops. :)

Steve set up three of my white candle booth table cloths to the entertainment center with clamps and I set up the little tree and strung it with a bit o’ lights (I LOVE that tree LOVE it) and the Veggie’s nativity that everyone loves so much then we went at it — snapping a thousand photos, both me and Morgan and we ended up with a few that are actually pretty good. All things considering, of course, since neither kid wants to smile and look at us at the same time as the other. I wanted more of the home made look, hence the un-ironed/layered atmosphere and simplicity of everything; kind of kid-like, Dr. Seuss-y, you know? Before digging stuff out of the basement I had wrapped a box, too, with top flaps up. Elijah wanted SpongeBob paper… he also picked out that neon lime bow yesterday. We didn’t do exactly what I’d envisioned but I think it came out well. We were even able to use all sunlight because of the windows right on either sides.

Morgan and I then designed and ordered the Christmas cards and after she and my niece left, I spent the next several hours setting up a collage. I ended up buying a program to do it with as while on trial it put out a watermark but I love the danged program, so. Only $30, I can handle that. :)

So here we have it, what do you all think?

I can change stuff, so feel free to let me know if there’s something I should change. No prints have been made yet. :)

Ha, just realized I didn’t even mention what this is for! It’s for a Christmas present – or rather part of – for my Mom and Dad. These be their two only grandchildren. Then also for my Grandpa, these be two of his three great-grandchildren. (I thought of getting something of all great-grandchildren for him but I really don’t see that happening, especially since the other great-grandchild is 12-years-old and in school, so I have no idea when we could get with her). I don’t have a problem posting it though, ’cause Mom never visits my Flickr though I showed her how to order prints and anyone else, they’ll either miss it altogether or keep their mouths shut. :)

Well, now that I’ve spent a Saturday on this… I really need to crack down and get going more on my NaNoWriMo.  I need an outline so that maybe I can get more done… or something.

Anyway, the two immediately above of Elijah were done the hard way but the rest were done with an easier way Bes taught me. Basically, you just drag one photo onto another, creating a new layer, then use the background eraser to reveal the person that’s hiding on the bottom layer onto the top layer. If you are dealing with surroundings like outdoors and stuff that doesn’t move between shots, this is beyond easy. (I learned the hard way that having Sarah sit on three parts of the couch didn’t work too well because the cushions would sink under her weight, etc.) Make sure you’ve got it all the way you want it and flatten the image, then drag that flattened image onto another shot, if you have more and repeat the process. Cool huh? :)

Yay for multiplicities – who wants to model for me? :)

However, I think I’m going to make one, be it four days late.

I vow to delete any bad pictures I have taken as I go along so that at the end of 2007 I’m not stuck with 40 Gigs of photos to go through, to back up. Yes, I am serious. 40 Gigs.

I also vow to burn any of Sarah’s photos on to CD and give them to her, thereby releasing me of the responsibility of having them on my computer once I’ve put them on Flickr for her.

Okay, how about you? Anything you’d like to share? :)