November is a month for giving thanks and I am no different than anybody else.  My thanks include for my good health and a job that pays well.  But my very special thanks are for my wonderful family.  Without their love and devotion my life would be meaningless.  I’m sure you feel the same way.

Family values are the core of what drives most of us.  Especially during the holiday season.  This year with our troops coming home from Iraq many of you are experiencing this much more than the rest of us.  My heartfelt thanks to you as well.

With the Thanksgiving season and family value themes, November was a time for me to focus on family portraits.  For my family I had the privilege to compile the photos and design my daughter’s family Christmas card.  I do this quite frequently and it’s always a challenge.  Not because of personalities, but because of logistics.  With six family members it is not easy to get everyone in the room at the same time.  With this in mind I recommended either a composite or a collage so we could shoot individual images and accommodate everyone’s schedule.  The latter was the easiest since we could not guarantee all could be available to shoot under the same conditions as required by a composite.

To make this work I shot the four kids against a black background.  The thinking was that using a solid background would make the blending into a collage easier later.  As expected I couldn’t get a shot of the adults at that time since my son-in-law was on the road.  Then when he was in town, I was on the road.  Luckily, my wife can take pretty good shots and was able to get the one of the adults.  Here are the five shots.

We decided that converting them to black and white would add a nice touch.  Then blending them into a black background was pretty simple.  The only real challenging part was to make the artistic design and the transition from one image to the next.  Below is the result.

The other side of the Christmas card was festive in shades of red and gold with white lettering.

Another major shoot for November included another family of six.  These family members were all adults and mostly pretty young ladies.  This made shooting much easier.  The focus was a family portrait to be displayed over their fireplace.  Therefore, I shot several variations of the group.  I also took the advantage to shoot individuals and groups of the children.  What mother wouldn’t want some nice images of her children? 

Here’s the family.

I wanted to get some outdoor shots, but the weather didn’t cooperate.  These were taken in their home.  Thought they turned out pretty well considering the tight space.