Nerf gun

My in law's family Christmas was this weekend and our kids both got Nerf guns from their aunt. My oldest and I had fun trying to catch the nerf dart in flight. Well, it was fun at first because the very first shot I got it, but then it took another 10 shots to get the next, and 15 to get the next, and so on. DS was getting anxious after a while!
Here are a couple to show off:

This was the very first shot. I got lucky apparently!


Looks pretty cool!


Look closely. You can see the nerf dart just starting to come out!

Frost

We woke up to -35C temperatures this morning, holy freaking cold!! We've been very spoiled so far this winter, even though it isn't technically winter year, we all know that Alberta's winters can start in October. Up until last week we had no snow on the ground and very mild temperatures. I accidentally thought to myself, "hmmm. Seems weird without any snow on the ground." and BAM! There was the snow. Snow I can handle, it's the cold temperatures that get to me. Two days ago it was -6 in the morning. Today? MINUS 35 DEGREES CELSIUS!!
Our windows were covered in frost. It made for some beautiful pictures.

Our Christmas tree

Just a few pictures of our tree that we finally put up yesterday!






Look who has to be the centre of attention!




This was just a little creative re-arrangement of the CHRISTMAS block letters.
I thought it was funny. Mark did not.



edited to add a few more:













edited to add two more pictures. These were ornaments I won last year in Dishaversary!

Christmas in the Park event

I was hired to shoot an annual event in our town this past weekend, Christmas in the Park. It started at 5:15pm with the lighting of the Christmas lights on the trees down the main street boulevard. Immediately after that, there a parade down main street. There were more entrants than expected, probably because the weather was so mild this year. Last year it was -30C and this year it was 0! After the parade there were activities for the rest of the night down in the Lion's Park Campground down in the river valley. People in the town volunteered to come down to the park during the weekends preceding the event to decorate trees with lights and decorations, there were lights up the hiking trail which overlooked the 2000 candle luminary in the design of a sleigh with "2008" underneath. It was quite the site!
I was a little nervous to shoot this event because I had never done an outdoor, NIGHTTIME event before. It is pitch black by 5:20 these days so we are talking NO light outside. I spent the weeks prior to the event studying how best to go about a nighttime outdoor event and it really paid off. I am very happy with the outcome of these pictures, much better than I had hoped. The Town is thrilled with them also.
Here are a few of my favourites:

The Mayor turns on the Christmas lights in the boulevard trees:




Last bits of light in the sky before total darkness sets in:



The people start to gather:




Here comes the parade!



Travel agency float:



Hospital float:



Ski club float:



Here comes Santa(s)



Santa #1



Santa #2 - yes, they had 2 Santa's. Try explaining that to my 5 year old...



Entrance to the campground:



Beautiful display of Christmas trees in the park:



More Christmas trees:







There where sleigh rides:





And rides on "Old Red"







2000 candle luminary of a sleigh:





The candles in the open field where just beautiful:

My model is so moody.

I had to go out today and do some test shots for an industrial and patterned backdrop request and had to drag along my 10 year old to be the "model". It's like pulling teeth and he is not very happy about it! Here are just a couple:

One more time with Photoshop

My oldest earned his green belt in Taekwon Do this week and wanted to do one more "scene" (like the ones in my post below) with all of his belts together. White vs. Grey, Yellow vs. Green. Here it is:

Fun with photoshop

I just learned this fun new technique in photoshop and I've been having a little fun with it this weekend. Check it out!

This was the first scene I did with my 10 year old. The first method I used didn't work so well but after I learned the new method, it looked much better.


This is our cat Frankie. I had to throw treats all around the room to get her to go where I wanted. Then the dog came barging in the room and she ran away.


This is my 5 year old sitting around the table playing cards, having an argument and just being cute.


After we saw how cool the first rock band came out, we decided to take it up a level to include another guitarist and a wardrobe change for each member of the band:


The little one is really into army men and he wanted to reenact a battle scene. Is this is his way of honouring our fallen soldiers this Remembrance Day? He's such a nut. Anyway, I reduced the color saturation in all but the green channel. Gives it more of an old time feel while enhancing the green of the army guy.


It was a fun little project, hope you enjoy!