Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
The plan was to get some things for the Catmas card shoot, get a tire and battery for the car, and then come home and get busy on the card. It almost worked.
My first stop was Target, where I found the tree that I wanted in the first place. We ended up getting something from the dollar store over the weekend as an emergency backup. I'd even done a test shot Monday night and determined that it would work in a pinch. The next step was to find a few decorations. Of course, in the week since I'd last shopped for decorations, there's been a run on the things. Everything is picked over, which I suppose isn't a surprise. I found a couple of things at Target and then went on to World Market for a few more items.
World Market also had a bottle of House Wine, perfect for Tuesdays. I stopped at the store, then came home and dropped off the stuff, unloaded the trunk of the car, got a little food, and then went off for a new tire. I was charged a little under $10 which is about what I thought I'd have to pay given the mileage on the old tire. It still beats buying a new tire. I was back home in half an hour. That was fast!
I didn't have enough time to get a new battery, so I set up the tree for the shoot and took a quickie test picture. It looked good. Then it was off to get the kid followed by a trip to get the battery. I was lucky. A shipment had just - and I mean that the truck was still there - arrived and they had the battery I needed. Then it was back to Target because I needed a star for the tree and Chris needed to pick up a few gifts for his friends.
Then it was back home to cook dinner, after which I got started on the actual shoot for the card. It required taking a picture of the tree against a backdrop. Fortunately I found something that would work for the card so I didn't have to knock it out and replace it in Photoshop. Next I had to shoot a couple of decorations on their own to place in the scene. We had photographed the cats on Monday, and I had already knocked out the backgrounds and turned them into objects.
After that, it was just the tedium of cropping things to the right size, making adjustments for where the flash didn't cover well, and placing everything in the picture. We still need one more item to complete the card.
Oh, yeah: And I took an hour out to watch House. I'm glad Hugh Laurie got nominated for a Golden Globe, but I'm sorry that the show was shut out of the Best Drama category. The episode was good, as usual. It was fun to watch House rankle against Foreman.
And I still have the card on my desk next to my monitor. I'm still blown away by it.
Time to go throw a ball at some sticks of wood.
Tags: Life