Christmas Card 2007 — The Human Candy Cane
Author: Tracy Sigler | Posted: December 12th, 2007 | | Tags: Christmas card, Handmade, photography | 11 Comments »
This is our favorite card so far, and not just because it’s a bunch of pictures of us. It took two days, three separate shooting sessions, and more wardrobe changes than a Cher concert.
We were having our usual dinner table brainstorm back in November when Mars came up with “candy cane.” And that was like a lightning bolt of silliness to my head. I have been wanting to do a card using our bodies as props, and I immediately realized that with our martial arts gear and street clothes we had everything we needed to be human red and white stripes. Almost everything that is. I didn’t have any red pants. It took some hunting but I was able to find some $10 Sporty Spice wind pants at the local discount store.
Our basement has a high ceiling. It also has a killer skateboard ramp. We put our low-buck “green screen,” about 10 yards of cheapo green fabric, in the middle of the ramp flat bottom. I put the camera on a tripod, but then lodged it in the plumbing running across the ceiling. This set up worked pretty well. If I had taken the time to tack down the fabric to get rid of the wrinkles it would have saved some time in the editing. Also using better lighting would have made this easier. I just used halogen construction lights placed on each deck of the ramp.
With everything in place we started posing. Mary, Paris and Mars would lie on the fabric first. Then, I would climb up a step ladder, start the timer, jump down and throw the ladder to side because it caused shadows, and try to get into position in time. The hardest part to get right was the radius. We used blue tape as guide, but it took some trial and error. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell if it would work and be in scale until I was editing the pictures together. “Everybody put your stripe clothes back on.”
Previous cards: 2006, 2005, 2004
Image on back of card
Camera rig
“I know it’s cold down here. Bend to your left!”
Fabulous! I don’t know how you will top this one, but you are one fun, creative and full of surprises family.
Aunt Doris and I received this very nice card today. Well done, creative and original. A+
Holy soylent green, Batman! That’s a sweet Christmas card. You’ll have to ditch the whole enterprise next year, because this one’s set a pretty high bar. Nice work!
Truly inspired and *very* Sigler !
Best to you all!
I’m speechless… Nice work
This is awesome, guys. Best ever. Glad to read the story behind the picture. Too much!
[…] been stressing about this year’s card since before we even mailed last year’s. The Human Candy Cane from last year was our best so far. If anyone out there has any ideas for a card this year, and […]
I love love love this Christmas card. I have a site which shows clever ideas for Christmas cards and I would like to feature yours this week. I will , of course, provide a link to your site. I also did a book on clever Christmas cards called “Merry Christmas From..150 Christmas cards you wish you’d received” and yours would have fit in perfectly. Alas.
Hey Karen, Great site you have there. Write another book and we’re there! Let me know if you have any questions. Gotta come up with another idea for this year soon…
Very Creative! I love it!!
I think I might have to try this next year. Though, I don’t think my family will be as patient as yours. :)
Thanks Kristeen! I wouldn’t say the kids are patient…