Hopefully everyone whom (or who?) I sent a Christmas card this year has already received it. If you didn’t get a card, then send me your postal address some time and I’ll put you on the list for 2010.
The final card (front and back) can be seen at my Flickr page (it’s grouped with my 2008 card) along with 4 outtake photos.
My 13th annual Christmas card
Back in 2002, I bought LEGO
set 10069 – Christmas Tree at the LEGO store in Schaumburg, IL for a couple bucks. It became one of my favorite Christmas decorations and I kept it up year-round in my boiler room/studio.
This year, I decided to replicate the LEGO tree in the form of cardboard for my 2009 Christmas card. There’s basically only three shapes in this set, so it was easy enough to get their dimensions nailed down.
I scanned each LEGO piece from two different angles. I knew that the width of each piece would be 1.25″. That’s the width of my ruler. It made cutting the cardboard much easier. From that measurement, Photoshop and the Pythagorean theorem (a2+b2=c2) gave me the final dimensions. A few cardboard sheets and a lot of hot glue resulted in the final construction of the cardboard version of the LEGO Christmas tree 10069.
The resulting final photo selected for the card was taken with one softbox placed above the tree. It wasn’t perfectly centered above the tree. It was positioned slightly towards the camera to help pour some light on the side of the tree.
This lighting technique was conceived prior to the shoot. I knew it would be the most dramatic. I was quite happy with how the light flooded the c2 panels of the triangles.
I loved getting this card! It looked great on my refrigerator with a few of your other “red” cards from years past. There is a lot to like about this, but right now I’m going to give you props on that shadow. Suh-weet!
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