This year we decided to have fun with our annual Christmas card photo.

I am taking a photo of the rest of the family. My daughter is dressed in her Hogwarts Gryffindor robe and casting a spell on her brother Taylor. Dorie is dressed in her clerical robe. She is a chaplain at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Decatur, GA this year. Taylor is holding up a note saying, “I should have been adopted.”

This is the setup I used for the photo shoot. To trigger the Nikon D750 I used the Nikon ML-L3 Wireless Remote Control.

The reason I used this setup is that where we are standing there are a lot of shadows from the trees and not only do they create spotty patches of light they also create a color shift.

I underexposed the scene using the Aperture priority mode and Exposure Bias: -4/6 EV. I then just adjusted the strobes to fill-in so we were well lighted.

Here is a closeup of the family. Dorie and Chelle are the co-creators of this years Christmas card. I just captured it for us to use.