First of all we want to start with some fun photos of a May 2018 bride & groom of ours!! You may remember Eileen & Dustin from their St.Joe, Michigan Engagement Session a couple months ago, but what you don't know is that prior to their Engagement Session, we'd come up weeks prior in September to photograph their Engagement only to be rained out. They'd added at one point that they may want some Engagement photos with their cats, so we decided it was a perfect time to photograph that since we were already up there. We photographed them and their cats Hops & Barley, then made the first photo into a hilarious Christmas card for them-!! (Theirs was one of our favorite Christmas cards that we created this year out of all of them and we've been waiting until they sent their cards out to post any of the photos!) Not only that, but we also took some photos of Dustin and his snake Jeff Gordon!! Here are those:
And then... we finally took our annual Christmas self portrait this past weekend-!! A little backstory: 4 Christmases ago we started taking a self portrait for Christmas. We thought it was hilarious that we lived in California after finishing our (Master's MFA in Fine Art Photography and BFA in Commercial Photography) classes at Brooks Institute, we really had no signs of fall or winter at all out in Santa Barbara. Jason got a great idea to take a funny Christmas photo together since we'd already taken some self portraits together (to model some products for commercial companies we photographed random projects for). Everything spiraled from there.
That year in 2014 Jenny came up with the idea of bringing a plastic Christmas tree down to our favorite beach, we got the tree, hats, & ornaments at some thrift stores, and realized that we already had cheap sweaters with pugs on them that we'd both gotten out of boredom on Black Friday while out of town for the holiday. We decided that we'd wear the sweaters, then I found my 4th of July bathing suit and said that since it was warm out and we were photographing it on the beach that I should wear those red & white striped bathing suit bottoms with some cut red hose disguised as knee socks (that my friend had me use as a prop for her photo in class once). Jason decided to join suit and pulled out a pair of red & white striped european-style underwear that his friends had jokingly gotten him once in San Francisco. We made an evening of it and headed down a million steps to our favorite beach (Mesa Lane in Santa Barbara) and made an obstacle of ourselves carrying all of our props by beach goers. We *attempted* to make a sand snowman, covered the Christmas tree in HUGE seaweed and ornaments, and struggled to beat sunset for the photo. It was a success-!
By the end of summer 2015 we'd moved across the country to Michigan, so we opted to take our photo at Diamond Lake in Cassopolis, Michigan. We adopted our cat Kevin a week later, so sadly he didn't make the photo, but it's probably for the best. It was FREEZING and the first day we attempted the photo our camera and bodies kept freezing in the snow. It was our first rodeo taking the photo with no pants, shoes, or anything on, so we were icy and frustrated. We tried again the next evening near sunset and just barely got a photo. There was so little snow at that point that we actually took a laundry bin and carted snow from other areas into our photo-!! We decided that it'd be funny and ironic to include faux palm trees/ tropical plants to juxtapose from the year prior. We also had 2 wigs Jenny had gotten at 90% Off from when a costume store closed down in Santa Barbara, so Jenny decided to finally wear one for a photo.
By the end of summer 2016 we'd moved to South Bend, Indiana in our first home and adopted our dog Coco. We decided, though, to take our Christmas photo at Lake Michigan up in Michigan. We thought it'd be perfect to again have our photo at a beautiful beach, but BOY were we WRONG! First we had to drive 45 minutes to the beach, then we had to pay nearly $10 to get in the gate, THEN we had to hike through horrific BELOW ZERO winds across sand dunes and an icy log over an icy river to get to the spot we wanted on the beach. Jenny again wore a discount wig we'd gotten in Santa Barbara (a different one this time) and we used our new tree, decorations, and moose dog toy. Next we had to decorate the tree in said horrific ice winds AND get half naked for the photo. We didn't fully understand our new trigger and one of the cameras died in the process, so there was a lot of screaming and discomfort... and maybe crying by the non-female. It was by FAR one of the most painful experiences of our LIVES and we honestly thought we had frost bite. When we tried to warm up in the car on the way back afterward, it felt like our limbs were ice nubs and it took a good 10 minutes to start feeling appendages again. NEVER AGAIN! DO NOT ATTEMPT EVER!
This 2017 we are still in our home in South Bend, adopted the rabbit Jenny gave her sister 8 years ago (Marco), and we decided to make it less terrible on ourselves and photograph our card literally across the street from our house on the St. Joseph River. Sadly Jenny had bronchitis for 2.5 weeks and within that time, only 5 days were covered in snow. We waited until the absolute LAST day of snow to photograph our card over the weekend so that we felt semi healthier and it was a good 40 degrees out (20 to 30 degrees warmer than it had been for a week). The snow already started to melt at that temperature, so we were racing the clock, though we did wait until late afternoon for the sun to be less intense. We used our same outfits, same tree as last year, and decorated the tree once we found a good spot for the photo. Another costume store is going out of business this week, so Jenny got another very discounted wig and it's about the only thing that changed in our photo this year. The photo was relatively easy to photograph and our second warmest photo by far. The snow is always cold on bare skin, but at this point we're pros. Days later we decided that we wanted to add our animals to the photo, so we hiked down the cliff to our spot on the river and photographed each animal in a different spot that we wanted them to be in the photo. There's NO way we could get a big hyper dog, cranky old cat, and old bunny to sit still at the same time (nor would we EVER attempt to take a self portrait with them without holding them), so Jason Photoshopped them into our card this year-!!
We hope you've enjoyed the silly Christmas photos and that you've had a good time preparing for and celebrating the holiday season whatever holiday you do or don't celebrate. We just like to create funny things, so this time of year is always exciting. We have taken a non-themed photo (I think?) every new year as well, so be on the lookout for those in a couple weeks as well as we prepare for a new wedding and portrait season AND our upcoming holiday vacation! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and much love to our friends, families, clients, and readers!