Family Calendar 2013

I've been making calendars for my family every Christmas for the past few years, and this year was no exception.  It takes a lot of time and patience, but I am always happy at the completion of my creation.  I've learned a lot about doing them every year, from what people like to see, to getting as efficient as possible with the production.

The first year I made these calendars, I focused around photographs I had taken that year, that I had really enjoyed.  I think my family liked it, but I moved on to use photos of family members throughout the years.  I've also gone from using one traditional photo per month, to including about a dozen shots each month.  I think this is more enjoyable for everyone - especially now that a lot of my siblings are having children.  My sister posted a video on Facebook of her daughter pointing out her aunts and uncles in the family calendar I made last year, which completely melted my heart.

I've contemplated getting these calendars done professionally every year, but I find that it's not a financially smart decision for making twelve calendars.  It's about a hundred dollars cheaper to take the time to create my own calendar (which I simply do in iCalendar on my Mac, where I put in everyone's birthdays, different holidays, and the full moon schedule each year) and print off my own Adobe Illustrator files of photographs.  My only costs are my time, a pack of card stock paper, a couple cartridges of printer ink, and the process of binding at an office supplies store.  I print the calendar on one side of a sheet of card stock, then flip it around and print off the photos.  It takes a lot of time, and patience, but it's worth it to me.  My mom has a binding machine that I've used in the past for my calendars, but this year I decided to knock the whole process out before we went home for the holidays.  My local Staples store was able to bind my calendars within a day, and they even included a clear plastic sheet on the front and a black linen covering on the back.

It seems like every year I make some sort of mistake - this year I discovered after about eight months in that I was printing the calendar part on the top half of the hanging calendar, and the photos on the bottom.  I seem to have an "oh-shit" moment like this every year with my calendars, but I know that I am getting better with the finished product with each shot I take at it.  As they say, you'll be a pro at anything you put ten thousand hours into.  I'm only a couple hundred hours into this family calendar, but I love seeing the progress I make each and every year.  And it's all worth it to see my calendar hung up in my family members' homes whenever I go to visit them.  Not to mention, it makes remembering everyone's birthdays Much easier!

Around Town

It's been a weak week for my camera and me - very busy at work, lots of Christmas preparation on Saturday, and a little hungover on Sunday after a work Christmas party.  But Brian and I made it out around Calgary today, and checked out the new train stops that just opened up.  I made a mental list of things I wanted to photograph, focusing around the sun and people, and this is what I ended up with...

A Day in the Mountains

Brian's mom and aunt came to Calgary last weekend, and we spent a day in Banff with them.  It was an absolutely beautiful day in the mountains - there was snow on the ground, and the weather was, as usual, changing dramatically every twenty minutes.  (As they say, Calgary is the only place where you can slip on an ice patch, fall into a puddle, and dust yourself off.)  Here are a few shots I got in Banff - I like how they turned out, but I don't know if anyone could ever capture how truly amazing it is up in these mountains.  Come visit!!

                                                                  

The Best Science Experiment Ever - ESPECIALLY if You Have Kids!

Brian and I spent some time this past week photographing food coloring.  I had told him I wanted to take some pictures of food coloring dispersing in liquid (after watching my tea steep so beautifully at work in the mornings), and he mentioned he saw a cool experiment online involving milk and food coloring.  He said he would be happy to help me take such photos of food coloring and milk, and (as our life balancing act together goes) I was ready to get the ball rolling while he was still de-stressing from the workday.  So, I initially took some photos of my own interpretation of food coloring and milk:

I thought this was pretty cool, but when Brian got around to see what I was doing, he told me I wasn't doing the "food coloring and milk experiment" right.  He then went on to take about a cup of milk, pour it onto a plate, drop in a few drops of food coloring, and follow it with a drop of dish soap.  All I can say is, WHOA.

Apparently, what happens is, the food coloring sits on top of the milk.  When you put in a drop of soap, it eats away at the fat in the milk, and therefore moves the food coloring apart.  This was such a cool thing to see, and I can't wait to do it again.  I could have spent another hour photographing what I saw, but the fire alarm went off in our apartment, and we had to end our experiment...  I've already told Brian we're doing this again sometime, and I can't wait to get much better shots.  Until then, you should try it for yourself, and see it in real life.  Simply mind-blowing.