Christmas In The City

Well if you didn't already know it, I've decided to spend Christmas in New Zealand this year. Although it's the time of the year I want to go home the most, I decided three roundtrip flights to North America in 6 months wasn't my idea of fun. Anyways, I'm just chilling in town the first week, going to hang out with some fellow Canucks for Christmas BBQ, and then taking a road trip up to the Northern end of the North Island the second week. So this will be my first Christmas in a "no snow zone" for as long as I can remember...and to be honest, it kinda sucks...it just doesn't feel like Christmas without the snow and the cold. Sure it's nice to walk around in shorts and tshirts, and to have to apply sunscreen before leaving the house, but it just isn't the same...oh well...I won't be complaining about warm sunny weather on my roadtrip!

So this is what Wellington looks like at "Christmas time". Pretty balmy looking eh? Midland Park is always a busy spot for the downtown crowd at lunchtime. It sits out front of what I believe is the Vodafone building. So when the weather's nice, the lawn is always jammed up with workers trying to grab a little sun while dining. It's a nice little spot. The one thing I did find kinda strange was that parents actually let their kids play in the fountain like it's some sort of water amusement park. They weren't even wearing bathing suits, I think they were just in their underwear. I don't know if it's allowed or not, but nobody seemed to be complaining, and nobody came to tell them otherwise. Now I wonder what would happen if it was a grown man playing in the fountain in his underwear...haha...I don't think he'd last very long. Ah little kids have all the fun :)

So what is this exactly? No it's not some goofy picture of a shiny Christmas ornament...it's a goofy picture of ME shooting myself in the reflection of a shiny Christmas ornament...except that it's so scratched up you probably can't even recognize me. Oh well...

A Kitschy Christmas

And a kitschy Christmas to you too. Last weekend I took some photos for some friends to be used as their Christmas cards this year. The initial idea was a "trailer trash" theme, but that eventually morphed into "kitschy and tacky". Friends of theirs were gracious enough to lend us their home for the shoot, unknowing that we wanted it because it was the Holy Grail of kitsch...honestly though, how awesome are a knitted cake and cupcakes!!! So in keeping with a 50s-60s overall kitsch style, George busted out his best snowflake sweater and plastered his hair to his forehead...the mustache was a bonus remnant of last month's Movember...I think Lesa swiped a dress and Santa hat from somewhere. Et Voila!

I ended up doing a little bit of post work to try and get something acceptable looking. I wasn't exactly thrilled with my location lighting but thank goodness for Lightroom and Photoshop! I also used some of the filters in PS to push the overall look towards a more 50s style poster artwork. Lesa and George will add their own holiday message to the image before printing them and giving them out. If you're lucky, maybe you'll be getting one of these tacky gems in your mailbox :)