Life Inside the Doll House

I have decided that the best thing about Christmas photography is the lights. I had a little play around with some flash photography with the boys tonight but the result were predictably dreadful. I need to find a way to make better use of artificial light this winter.

Weeks like this are enough to give 365s a bad name. I  have been far too busy to take photos this week. There has been a lot of work and kid related emotional drama to deal with on top of the usual  pre-Christmas frenzy. More than once I contemplated not bothering with a photo but I am glad that I am managing to hang in there so far. 6/365 - taken at work. 7/365 - last minute before bed with Lensbaby and shaped boheh. 8/365 - bath time tonight. Playing around with the matte effect, which I have a bit of a thing for. I am keen to get into double digits soon as I think that it will feel a bit easier. 

The theme of the 52 Project this week was Self Portrait. This gave me the opportunity to try out a Photoshop technique from this month's Digital Photo magazine.  As an extra bonus I get to submit a self-portrait without worrying too much about wrinkles or grey hairs.

It is nativity time and I am overwhelmingly proud to announce that Bear has been chosen to play the part of Mary. She is delighted too, mostly because the roll involves holding a baby doll. She took her outfit home this weekend so that she can get into character before the dress rehearsal tomorrow. This gave us the opportunity to take some pictures. I absolutely could not resist  popping over to Photoshop and really getting into the spirit of the whole thing. There is a tiny chance that I went overboard... but it makes me giggle. I find this sort of edit very challenging in Photoshop. I have played around with so many different selection tools but I am never happy with the outlines I achieve. I suspect that I lack the patience and attention to detail that is required for this sort of job.  While in Photoshop, I tried out one of the fun edits from this month's Digital Photo Magazine. It was so easy, and so much fun. I love this sort of stuff.  ...

It is getting very close to Christmas now and the time has come to get those letters written to Santa. I wish that I had thought to photograph this wonderful tradition in the past because it is precious beyond words. We are having some major building work done in the kitchen right now, so I found myself very short of decent spaces to take photos in. The kids and I set up a mini studio in my bedroom. Next year I will go all out with a studio backdrop, lighting and props.

Today's photo was taken with the 52 project in mind. The theme this week is "hot". I wanted to play around with bokeh and some of my favourite Christmas decorations. A recent article I read reminded me that bokeh can work both in front and behind the subject. I had to play around in Photoshop a little because the girl deer's ear is broken off. I am not 100% delighted with how it turned out, but it is better than I would have achieved last Christmas. We are all feeling ready for Christmas now and we are feeling a bit impatient to finish up with school and work. Only one more week to go. I am so glad that I started the 365 now because there is so much to photograph at this time of year, and I will be in double digits before I know it.

So here we go again on day 1. I figured that I will be taking lots of photos over Christmas so why not get the 365 started. I have jumped in the deep end with a very tricky photo situation - Rexy's school play. The lighting was terrible. He was only on the stage for a couple of minutes and hid in the shadows a little. Nonetheless, these sorts of pictures are so very precious. My moto is "even a bad photo is better than no photo". Presenting... King Rexy.