Carters create product photography of christmas-snowmen and reindeer. Many of the photographs feature Eric ( who is Santas snowman and a distant nephew of Frosty) and Rolf ( Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’s youngest son ).
The Christmas snowmen set ups first started as a way of grandad amusing his granchildren in New Zealand. They soon became hugely popular with a visual story that as a side issue could easily be developed for particular product ranges..
However hey also became a way of very serious product photography “intent”. We demonstrated clearly that a group of ceramic items could become the focus of a running story line of goodwill and generosity to children at Christmas.
Many of the Twitter based stories around individual product photographs of christmas-snowmen are based on Eric’s antics. As we all know Eric is Santa’s loyal snowman and he’s getting on a bit so keeping the reindeer under his gently melting hand is a Christmas challenge ..
For instance Eric took Little Red Reindeer under his wing when Little Red Reindeer became lost. Rolf and Rachael ( Rudolph’s children all became part of Eric’s Twitter band and all provide the magical elements that make a photographic Christmas.
More images on Pinterest…https://www.pinterest.co.uk/davidc8282/ covering all categories of interest.
Shooting Notes
Everybody will tell you that photographing young children and pets can be a nightmare. From a studio prospective I have to tell you that Snowmen and Reindeers are also exceptionally difficult.
Each one of these product scenarios required bespoke lighting set ups. Studio lights omit a lot of heat so keeping Eric cool long enough to prevent melting became a issue. In the end between shots he popped himself in the studio freezer and sat there in the dark contemplating Christmas.
Equally Rolf and Rachel the reindeer children although very well behaved could also be …. children. So Rolf who always carried the North Star around under his arm was always fascinated by the technical side of the product shot. Was it F8 or F11 David..or similarly was Capture better than Lightroom. ? Wonderful questions but for the product photographer capturing Christmas .. well Rolf you are on the wrong side of the camera my young friend.. !
So we carried on , Rachael who was a poppit sat there and knitted Santa a warm Winter scarve, Eric popped in and out of the freezer and Rolf was just .. Rolf. All the shots went through and everybody waited for Santa to turn up and take them back to Santaland. For the photographer ( that’s me) I had a stiff drink and went off to lie down in a darkened room.. was that the sound of sleigh bells I can hear in the distance ?..
