Blog Posts

Taking Additional Christmas Photos

9/1/2026

I needed to take a photo of Baron giving a toast at the family Christmas dinner, so had to recreate the set from Christmas 2023 as closely as possible, right down to the food on everyone's plates.

It took quite a few tries to get just the right photo....

Then my sister asked if there was any way to take some photos of the three girls who always had their backs to the camera, as there weren't really in the original set of photos. Well, I couldn't take photos from the other side since there was no wall behind them. So, I came up with the idea of turning the table and everyone at it ninety degrees. I figured since most of the new photos were going to be close-ups, no one would really notice the slight different in background....

So, now I had a view down the centre of the table with everyone clearly in view...

So, I could take all kinds of photos of the girls who had always had their backs to the camera....

and of them interacting...

Only problem was, the set wasn't deep enough for Miho to join them at the end of the table, So I used the box the Christmas trees and wreaths are stored in to extend the end of the table a bit...

So I could take a few close up photos with her in them as well...

Then I got to clean everything up, and put away the Christmas decorations again.

1 Comment

A Family Dinner

8/31/2026

1 Comment

The original series of Christmas dinner photo wasn't particularly interesting after all the babies had joined their parents at the table, so while I was at it I also decided to take a bunch of new photos of everyone interacting with each other more, like they would at a real family dinner.
These are a few of my favourites...

1 Comment

Three Girls and a Guy

8/30/2026

4 Comments

While taking the photos of Baron giving his toast, my sister asked if there was any way to take some photos of the three girls, Agnes, Olivia, and Lisa, who always had their backs to the camera in the original set of photos taken in 2024. She also needed a nice close-up of Baron. So, I set about taking some of the required new photos...

4 Comments

Baron's Toast

8/29/2026

4 Comments

The fourth book in the Somewhere In Time series was going to end at Christmas, with the entire family gathered for dinner, and Baron standing to make a toast to the future. When I had originally photographed the family's Christmas back in 2024 I hadn't thought that far ahead yet, so I had to set up the entire Christmas dinner scene so I could take the photo we needed to end the book. Everything had to be exactly the same as in the original photos, right down to the position of the ornaments on the tree, the height of the candles in the background, and the food on their plates, so the new photo would fit in seamlessly...

So I started taking photos of Baron giving his toast..

They were all nice photos, but Baron was too far to the left, and completely framed by the tree. The photo was going on the right side of a two-page spread of a rather thick book, so we didn't want him too close to the centre ditch. Plus I had to keep in mind the proportions of the final printed page, as well as watch out for the positions of the candle flames, and the focus was ultimately supposed to be on Baron and Naomi. So I had to reshoot two dozen times until I got everything just right...

...and the final spread in the book was complete....

4 Comments

A Quiet Moment

8/28/2026

4 Comments

When laying out a book, my sister always uses the low resolution versions of the photos first, and later after everything has been finalized, replaces them with the full size photo files for printing. But sometimes a full size version isn't sharp enough to go to print, and that doesn't become obvious until she sees the full resolution file, so then it has to be replaced, either by another sharper photo taken at the same time, or if there isn't one then I need to recreate the scene again as closely as possible and take a new replacement photo. And such was the case with a beautiful photo of Baron and Naomi having a quiet moment together in a corner of the room on Christmas.

The original photo wasn't sharp enough to be used as a full page, as it had been cropped out of a much wider photo...

So I had to set up the original scene again as closely as possible and reshoot....

But those pesky lines and the ball on the top of the stone pillar behind them were causing tension points again, plus the couple needed to be off-centre more to the left, to accommodate the text and central spine. So again it took a dozen attempts to get just right...

The final two-page spread in the book...

4 Comments

the Cover

8/27/2026

1 Comment

We needed a cover photo for the next book in the Somewhere In Time series, Life with Babies, which covers the story of Baron and Naomi from the birth of their twins up to and including the babies' first Christmas. It needed to be a vertical format portrait photo of Baron and Naomi and their babies, and even thought the new book was going to be over a hundred pages, there wasn't a single photo of them all together that would work. So, I had to shoot a brand new one. I love the lighting when dolls are photographed near the window, so I set up the scene with the babies' cradle in the background, and I started taking photos, first with the twins in their nightgowns...

...and then a few with them in their Christening gowns...

But I thought the babies looked more 'casual' in their nightgowns, so changed them back...

After taking more than a dozen photos, we decided to use the one photo with Naomi leaning into Baron, and holding the babies wearing their shorter nightgowns, for the cover...

And we decided to use our favourite photo with the babies in their Christening gowns as a lovely family portrait to replace the original photos on the first page spread of their Christening day....

1 Comment

'Pick-Ups' for Somewhere In Time 4

8/26/2026

7 Comments

We were working on the fourth book in the Somewhere In Time series, and like usual it needed some new photos taken to complete the layout. It's always a challenge doing a reshoot years after the original story, so it often takes several attempts.
First, a portrait of Naomi in her nightgown, with her shawl over her shoulders...

Then we needed a portrait of Miho, at Christmas, looking at the camera ....

Then a replacement photo of the Doctor having breakfast with Miho and Dominic the morning after he had delivered Naomi's twins. I'd originally only taken one horizontal photo and it wasn't sharp enough, so I had no choice but to set the scene up again for a reshoot. Everything on the set had to be identical to the original, right down to the food on the table, since the three of them get interrupted by visitors, and the breakfast table stays in the background the entire time.

I didn't like the tension points of the mortar lines of the stone pillar against Dominic's face, so had to reshoot several more times, until I got one that was just right....

7 Comments

the Dragon Hoard

8/24/2026

2 Comments

When our grandson was printing out the crowns and helmets ever bigger, he suggested maybe the smaller ones might fit my dragons. So, I gathered all my other crowns, swords, and bits of jewelry to take some photos of my dragons specially for him, to show how much I appreciated them all...

2 Comments

the Dragon Lord

8/24/2026

2 Comments

I wondered who would best suit the dragon crown, and thought Dominic....

But it wouldn't sit far enough down on his forehead, and I wasn't going to force it...

So, I tried it on Miho instead...

They looked quite the formidable looking couple...

2 Comments

3-D Printed Crowns

8/23/2026

1 Comment

My grandson 3-D printed out a very fancy crown for me, but it was too small, so he kept increasing the size until we had one that would fit Matias, who I had brought along as a model.

I had intended for them to be gold, but the gold spray paint I had did not work very well over either the black or the white. Usually gold items need to be red underneath, but I didn't have any red spray paint and didn't feel like buying a can just for the three crowns. So, I tried rubbing a red ochre paint over them. But I didn't like how they looked....

So, I over-sprayed them both again, the medium size one in gold, and the small one in chrome. Then I over-painted the gold ones with gold pilver intended for polymer clay, and aged the chrome one with burnt Sienna acrylic paint. Then I glued tiny rhinestones around the brims of the two gold ones...

1 Comment

<<Previous

Forward>>

Taking Additional Christmas Photos

A Family Dinner

Three Girls and a Guy

Baron's Toast

A Quiet Moment

the Cover

'Pick-Ups' for Somewhere In Time 4

the Dragon Hoard

the Dragon Lord

3-D Printed Crowns

Author

Archives