Aaron and I have been brainstorming the theme for our 2013 Christmas Card all year and we are happy to share the final product with all of you! It was my turn to create our Christmas Card, so I (of course) took a photographic approach. Aaron set the bar extremely high with his creative 'Christmas in the City' themed illustration for our card last year, so the pressure was really on!
I have decided to show you all how I put this card together and I want to thank Aaron for his creative eye which helped pull the whole concept together:)
This is the original shot taken at The Distillery District in Toronto. While this beautiful area has retained much of it's 19th century appearance, there was still quite a bit of 2013 that needed to be removed in order to achieve the look I was going for.
As you can see the lights, electrical and other modern-day objects have been removed to bring this location back in time and to give it an old 'England' look. I also changed the colour temperature. The ambient street light, other than the street lanterns, wouldn't have existed in that period.
What's a wintery Christmas card without snow?! I shot this in November, before all of this beautiful snow came along, so by using various tools and brushes in photoshop I painted snow into the scene and added some blustery fog patches into the distance.
Let it snow!
After the location was photographed, Aaron, Dragon and I got into character in my studio A.K.A our living room lol. I mimicked the lighting of our 19th century 'England' location using various speed lights with coloured gels. Here are some bloopers made possible with the help of my camera timer and trusty tripod. The last photo is Aaron holding Tiny Tim A.K.A. Dragon's hat. I knew having him keep that on during the shoot was a little too ambitious.
Our final choice:)
Now, the most rewarding part....to drop us in to our wintery wonderland...Ta-dah!!
Merry Christmas Everyone!!
http://nicoleduplantis.blogspot.ca/2012/12/the-evolution-of-our-christmas-cards.html
