Christmas Fun

The first day of December I embarked on what has become an interesting photographic project. My daughter recently moved to Kharkiv, Ukraine for a couple of years, to be with her husband who has been running a small software development company there. Since she was going to be out of the U.S. and away from most of her family for much of the holiday seasons, I thought I would attempt to bring some of "home" to her, by way of the internet.

When our daughter was a little girl, growing up in our home, one thing she always looked forward to at Christmas time was the Advent calendars we had. She enjoyed the daily ritual of opening up each day's new "surprise." So, I thought I would come up with my own Advent calendar for her this year, by daily taking a new photo of some little Christmas tidbit around our home, and posting it in a private Christmas Advent page for her somewhere on this blog.

Three Muses Attempt To Stay Warm

This has been a very interesting experiment and project. Each day I have had the challenge before me of how to come up with something entirely new for her. I didn't want to spend a long time composing and taking each shot, but wanted to have something much fresher, and even casual in manner. Some days the resulting photo has been serious in tone, sometimes it has been decidely humorous. But each day, I have tried to produce something that might grab her attention personally, as this project is specifically aimed at her.

It is wonderful every once in a while to take on a photographic project that requires us to stretch ourselves, to do something consistently (maybe even every single day) over an extended period of time. When our subjects are limited but we have to produce something effective anyway, in a very limited amount of time, it can cause us to advance as an artist, and to think and create in modes we might not find otherwise.

Merry Christmas!