I have a deep affection for fun holiday cards. In fact, I’m usually pretty busy this time of year creating holiday images for my clients. I love the whole process – discussing ideas, doing the shoot, and the post work. My goal every year is to create something that will stay on the refrigerator past New Year’s day.

This year, we went with a CSI theme. Specifically, CSI: Miami. That show is so over-the-top. Extra credit goes to Horatio Caine (played by David Caruso), as he somehow manages to open each show with a ridiculous one-liner. This video on YouTube, showing over 7 minutes of his poetic dialogue, will probably have you in stitches. It inspired us this year. Here’s the front of the card:

Some people might not get the CSI reference right away, so we included an image/tag line on the back:

We had a great time producing this year’s card, and are already thinking of ideas for next year. In the meantime, I’ve posted new work that I’ve done for my holiday clients at austinchristmascards.com.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and an incredible New Year!

If you’re a member of PPA, check the November issue of their magazine. There’s a story on my custom Christmas card work. Plus, a shot I submitted got an honorable mention for the cover contest. This is the second year in a row I’ve made the HM list. One day, I will make the cover :)

I am excited to see that my friend Matt Kloskowski’s new book, Photoshop Compositing Secrets, is out! Matt was kind enough to mention me and this blog post regarding a composite I did for a band last year.

If you are into compositing at all (or want to be), I highly recommend it. I am sure it will become one of the definitive compositing books for photographers. I am looking forward to seeing him and the rest of the NAPP crew at Photoshop World in Vegas.

In this second Italy post, I thought I’d share a couple more Venice images. Venice is one of those towns that you can get through in a day and see the major sights. However, if you do a little research there’s enough there to last a few days.

There are a bunch of islands that make up Venice, and we visited a few including Murano (where some of that fabulous glass is made). We also checked out some museums off the beaten path, which were great (not only for their artistic value) but for their ‘away from the tourists’ value.

I’m back!

We recently returned from an incredible trip to Italy, and this is the first post (of at least 3) about it. Both my wife and I have relatives there (mine are in Sicily, and hers are in a small town a few hours from Rome). I think we started planning this trip last year, and for the most part everything went very smoothly! Besides our family, my wife’s sister-in-law and her 2 daughters came along. And, before I go any further, a big thanks to my wife and sister-in-law for all of the hard work they did planning! My oldest son turned 6 during the trip which was way cool. My 3 year old was fun too, considering that we had several long days of sightseeing.

We flew into Rome and stayed for a night, and then headed to Sicily, followed by Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, Venice, Fabriano, Assisi, Orvieto, and finally Rome again for one night before we flew home. I also drove in Sicily and from Venice through the end of the trip, which was insane! In parts of Italy, things like traffic lights and stop signs are more recommendations than requirements.

I travelled with a very minimal kit – just a camera body, a 580 ex flash, a 50mm lens, and a 16-35mm lens (which I hardly ever used, especially once something startled to rattle on the inside of it). I ended up shooting about 2,000 images, which worked out to about 35 GB (I was shooting plenty of images at 21 MP for a project I want to do later). I probably could have shot more, but it’s the classic tradeoff between shooting and seeing things with the family. I had a couple ‘I am going to shoot for an hour’ opportunities though, so it worked out well. I didn’t have a laptop, so I backed up everything to an Epson portable drive.

Let’s start off with a few Rome shots:

In Sicily, we visited my relatives plus got a chance to drive halfway up Mt. Etna. It’s a cool volcano – still having eruptions every now and then. Here you can see some older lava flows:

After Sicily, we took an overnight ferry to Sorrento. Here’s a shot from the hotel:

You can see Mt. Vesuvius here:

Capri is an incredible island off the coast of Italy. Besides having a lot of cool stores and restaurants on the island itself, you can have a lot of fun around the island, checking out the rock formations, the fabulous colored grottos, and more:

They have a cable car that goes to the very top which is awesome! The view is incredible and peaceful:

Here is the famous Blue Grotto, which is a cave on the outside of the island. To get in, you literally have to lay down in a boat while the boat driver maneuvers into a little hole. Once inside, the water glows blue because light is coming underneath the entrance:

After Capri/Sorrento, we headed up to Venice:

I got lost quite a few times walking around there. Thankfully, a cool navigation app saved me (more on that in a later post).

Leaving Venice, we drove down to the Fabriano region (where my wife’s relatives are). We came across this cool castle museum that had an incredible view out the front door:

Who wouldn’t want to walk out to that everyday?

Our last stop was in Orvieto, which has an absolutely incredible church. It’s also massive. Here’s a shot looking at the entrance:

So there you go – the first post on the big trip. Next up, I’ll show you some of the fun times we had (including an incredible birthday party for Brandon), and later on I’ll post some iPhone pictures.

We just came back from an incredible vacation! Everything is in a little disarray right now, but I wanted to put up a teaser image to last until I can get a full post together.