Merry Christmas

As I write this, it is late in the evening and Christmas is about over. It is amazing how you can measure your kids development by their response to Christmas. This year was completely different from last with lots of excitement and high energy. The eldest TMG understood the meaning of the holiday and the gifts and his excitement was palpable. I absolutely loved it and nothing made me happier than seeing his excitement.

The senior little TMG is currently obsessed with Scoobie Doo and we purchased a box set of the entire first season. When he opened the gift, he was so excited that I thought that he would faint. It was the cutest the thing and I enjoyed it tremendously.

In this shot, you see the dining room table set for Christmas lunch. We included my mother and sister in our festivities and had a house full of people. A great time was had by all although we were ready to crash early given the high energy.

2009 was a great Christmas. For me, what made it really special was the maturation of the little TMGs and their ability to participate. I cannot wait for 2010 when the youngest TMG will be a year older and that much more involved.

This shot was taken with my ultra wide angle EF-S 10-22 10-22. I framed it so you can see our Christmas tree in the background and I like the added visual interest and context of the tree. The one difficult thing was the white balance since we have a combination of natural lighting (from the window) and artificial lighting from above. I ended up using PS to massage the image and get the right color balance.

Finally, I will be off the grid for the next few days and so look for some back blips in the future.

A year ago: A Lite Brite Merry Christmas.


Post processing:
Used PS layers and combined a layer with proper white balance for window and another with proper white balance for the foreground.

Constructive criticism is always welcome