Adding to an Old Story

Back in early December I was trying to get in the holiday mood, and thought a Christmas story from 2018 would make a great book. So my sister and I got started. But back in 2018 I wasn't taking quite as many interesting photos of any particular scene, and there weren't enough good photos to tell the ending to the story properly. So, I made the decision to reshoot the entire ending.  Which meant that I had to set up the scene in Santa's workshop exactly the same as it had been back in 2018, so the new photos would fit in seamlessly. 

The original set from 2018...

The new set was almost identical, except for I messed up the order of two chairs. And I no longer had the same coloured balloons. But since I was reshooting the entire ending, it wouldn't matter. But everything else was identical, although I did pay attention to the time on the clock this time, positioning the hands at a better time, and moving them as I took the photos for the story.

Balloons were strung on ribbons from a string across the room...

I often try give depth to a room to make it seem more in scale. In a real human-size room the farther corners will be darker than the foreground, but in such small doll-size rooms, there is no scale to the lighting because the room is not very deep. So, I deal with it in Photoshop. 
​I process the photos with the foreground lighting like I want it to be....

Then create a darker version...

I copy and paste the darker version on top of the lighter version, and use the brush tool to bring out the foreground....

Then I crop in. 
​Then the foreground is light, and the background is darker, and the room has the depth of lighting like a real full size room...

I took a lot of new photos, and had to watch out for tension points, like in this next photo where the clock is positioned directly between Winston's horns - like some Egyptian god - so, I had to go reshoot....

Then after reshooting the entire ending, we decided the story was missing a few vital scenes.  Like Santa out and about delivering gifts. So, on a cold snowy evening, we packed Santa and his sleigh into the car, and headed out looking for the best lit houses in our neighbourhood to use as background. We'd park on the side of the road, pull out the projector stand, place Santa on it and quickly take a few photos. ​Then I'd take close-ups so the stand wasn't showing....

At one location, where I put the sleigh on the stand with him, I piled snow on it to hide the stand...

And of course when working on a book, one thing tends to lead to another, and we decided we needed some photos of Santa and his elves loading up the sleigh. but where would they be doing that. Not outside in the snow. How about in a barn or stable, where the sleigh would be kept the rest of the year?  So I put together a stable using walls and props I had on hand....

I had to check photos from the original story to dress the same dolls in the exact same Elf outfits....

Well, the stable scene turned out so well, that one thing led to another, and I used it for two more scenes that were not in the original story from 2019...  Santa arriving at the North Pole

...and leaving on Christmas Eve...

All the new scenes made a great addition to the story, and the book...