Friday, November 19
by Karen Robert
And finally, here is my last card that I am posting for now from the Sigler family at weareheavyduty.com. For their 2008 card they used a long exposure camera and light sabers to make Christmas designs, in effect painting with light.
They are so descriptive about how they did it, I thought I should let them tell you how they went about creating this in their own words in case you want to try something similar.
“This large scale light painting of a Christmas tree was made in our backyard. On the ground the tree was 55 feet tall and about 25 feet wide. It appears short and fat because of the angle of the photograph. I had the camera, and video camera, in a stairwell window at the back of our house. I’m at least four storeys (someone asked, that is in fact the correct spelling) in the air because our property drops quite a bit. We are in the mountains. But the back lot is nice and flat. I used rope to lay out the tree and enlisted the family and some conveniently located neighbors to move the lights around.
The kids were in the middle of the tree swinging the light sabers (see below) in circles to make the “ornaments” and Mars walked back and forth to make a “garland.” The Moms (Mary and Jill) made the tree outline by waving two light sabers each as they walked along the rope, invariably racing at the end of each take to finish in time. I used a kitchen timer and called out the remaining seconds.
I wanted to do some light painting myself so I took the tripod and camera outside and made some “Nöels” in green and red. Nöel (Which I now know should be spelled “noël” – oof, embarrassing. I was in the dark!) is way easier than trying to write “Merry Christmas,” backward mind you, in the dark, before the time runs out and the shutter closes. Plus, Nöel is so short I was able to turn the light on and off for each letter, and add the umlaut over the “o.” I put a strip of four of these inside the card, along the top.
cool card
We did something similar for the family shot on the back of the card. For this one I used another camera, mounted on separate stand, just for the flash. That way I could move the lights around to make the frame, then get back into position before the second camera flashed, which would make us visible in the photo taken by the first camera. Staggering the timers on the two cameras so that the flash would happen after I was done drawing, but before the shutter closed on the first camera was a challenge. Have I mentioned we were in the dark? The image came out too dark on the card but the original looks good.
This was a fun card to make, but I was stressing about the execution. I mentioned to my friend Gary a couple months ago that I was worried about the logistics and he said something like “only you would have a Christmas card with logistical challenges.” Why do things the easy way? Walk hard.”
Thanks again to the Sigler family for allowing me to show you their wonderful cards. Hopefully I will posting this years card within the next month. Stay tuned. (No pressure or anything Siglers).
Thursday, June 17
by Karen Robert
I am on a wedding kick right now since I have been designing Save-the-Date-Cards. Since I’ve been poking around so many wedding sites, I started coming across lots of funny and off-beat wedding portraits. I know wedding portraits don’t necessarily have much to do with cards. Funny portraits have more to do with my love of wacky and wonderful pictures. My thought is that maybe somebody would do take portrait like one of these below and make them into thank you notes for all of those amazing wedding presents people sent them. I love when people take a traditional concept and turn it around into something clever and fun. Everyone responds to people who take the initiative to be clever and fun. Right?
A deadpan wedding couple taken by Whitney Lee Photography
A bride and groom letting loose, taken by Whitney Lee Photography
Also by Whitney Lee Photography
Another fun wedding portrait by Whitney Lee Photography
This one is a bit odd. I guess I like odd.
This one is by White Rabbit Studios I think, I love it.
I belive this one I found at White Rabbit Studios, but I am not 100% sure, I can’t figure out where I found it. Sorry to the photographer!
White Rabbit Studios? Sorry, I can’t remember where it came from.
This one is a bit much, but funny.
This was taken by Superpirate who can be found on Flickr. They were imitating their wedding topper.
A bride and a groom take a break on their wedidng. Picture taken by CarbonSilver (gbenz) on Flickr
PIcture of a bride secretly wearing tennis shoes taken by Talking Tree on Flickr.
Fun couple acting goofy on their wedding day taken by Superpirate on Flickr.
A bride pretends to have put her groom in jail. Taken by Katherine (KAS photography) on Flickr.
If you have a fun portrait you took on your wedding day, please send it to me, I would be happy to include it on another posting.
Wednesday, May 5
by Karen Robert
A fun way to create a card or send a message is by writing it on your hand. It seems to be a trend, I have shown quite a few cards like this in my book and here on the site. People say, “Merry Christmas”, “Save the Date”, or ”I love you”. It is , literally, handwriting. But , just for the fun of it, I thought I’d show some photos of words written on hands which communicate feelings rather than information. Once I started researching them, I realized that photographers love to take pictures of their hands with little bon mots written on them. It has become such a trend that they are starting to take the concept to the next level. Here are some of my favorite examples. By the way , have I mentioned how much I love Flickr? They are by far and away the best resource for searching for photos.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/greg76/26767730
http://www.flickr.com/photos/greg76/26767730
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgkw/1804365124
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dallian/4321416766
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecarlina/2849273427
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jono2k5/2519465662
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandyhonig/3829943353
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeioux/34291498
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46362400@N06/4401464722
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frialove/4210955331
http://www.flickr.com/photos/got2bme/2431926487
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sspincycle/2900181355
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40033576@N03/4063187727
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmas-photography/294360794
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dyanna/3079574294
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurendanielleee/3625964023
Wednesday, April 28
by Karen Robert
Vintage invitations are everywhere! I love the look of 1950′s ladies who look like they stepped out of their kitchens. I have a thing for vintage aprons anyway. Is that strange? I have about 15 of them, my sister and I give them to each other for Christmas. There is something so retro and comforting about them. When I’m wearing one, I feel like the world has stopped and my biggest worry suddenly becomes how to make a perfect pot of macaroni and cheese. It’s like I put on a supermom suit. So, I thought I would try to tackle making a series of invitations which evoke those same feelings. I wanted the invitations to say, ”come to my house, relax, and step back to a simpler time.”
Here are a few I have come up with. This one has a bossy mom look:
And this one has the subservient mom look.
I hope you like them, you can order them from me directly. Click on Contact tab at the top for more details.
More are coming. This is a short post so I can go back to designing them.
