Christmas card photo – 2019

The holiday season is upon us again and is time for me to choose a photograph for our annal Christmas Card & Season’s Greetings. Last year I found a really nice photograph for our Christmas card that I had captured when we were earlier in Vail Colorado that seemed well suited, and which was well received. nice.

For this year’s photo I recalled taking some late fall photographs when we were in central Virginia for our niece’s wedding a couple of years ago. I then narrowed my selection down to about six images and further developed these to determine the nicest one that provided a lyrical aesthetic, and from that development I settled on the photograph above. Ambiguous while having some poetic qualities. I find that when using a wide open aperture to create a shallow depth of field that my subject becomes the focus point of the photograph. Okay, I am also a shallow depth of field photographer, so this was my default methodology when photographing that day.

The lighting that day was a bit flat, with some patchy sunshine, thus I felt it necessary to increase the contrast for the hanging berries while keeping the background muted. I also cropped it a bit higher to eliminate some of the distracting background while still including the lead-in branch that takes the viewers eye into the center of the frame.

All in all, I think this photograph turned out very nice for its intended use.

Seasons Greetings, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas & the very best for a creative New Year!!

Doug

Btw, if you enjoy these photographs and you would like to purchase a print, message me or contact my gallery, Fabrik Projects, as to the sizes that are available or the size you would like to purchase.

Featured photo: McGaheysville, Virginia, 2017 copyright Douglas Stockdale

Also looking ahead for next year: Developing a Creative Book workshop with Medium Photo, March, 19-22, 2020 in San Diego (workshop registration is now open & my previous 2019 book workshop did sell out…just saying)