Photo of the day: My Name is Donder

This might be one of my favourite Christmas photos of the boys ever. My friend Henry on Flickr gave this one an alternate title that I also really like: we’re going to need a bigger wagon!

My Name is Donder

Fun, right? The expression on the reindeer slays me. That’s a Donder face if there ever was one.

This one almost went sideways on me right from the start. The idea was to have Bella pulling the wagon, and I was going to put some reindeer antlers on her in the style of Max the dog from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Except as I was getting the boys settled on the wagon, she managed to find a pile of poop in the front yard and roll in it. We don’t actually allow her to poop in the front yard, so I have some other neighbourhood dog to thank for that gift. And we were quickly losing the light, so we had to improvise.

This was the original shot:

My Name is Donder - before

I loved the expressions on their faces. The dog was a bit blurred though, and even with a few other poses to choose from, it just wasn’t working out to be what I imaged. The boys had been good sports and adorable, though, so I wanted to make it work.

I started by cloning Bella and Beloved out of the image and editing it for exposure and white balance. I found the perfect reindeer, but he was too big for the canvas, so I extended the edges of it upwards and to the right. I positioned the reindeer and tweaked him a bit so it looked like he was standing in the grass. He was already wearing the red harness, so I took Bella’s leather leash from one of the other poses I hadn’t used and painted it to match the harness, then stretched it to fit into Lucas’s hand. And I painted a bit of a shadow for the reindeer. I had to play a bit with the colour and contrast of the reindeer to look like he was actually standing in the same light as the boys, and then I tweaked it a bit more overall for the bright and contrasty look.

What do you think? It makes me chuckle when I look at it, which makes it a win in my books!

Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

3 thoughts on “Photo of the day: My Name is Donder”

  1. Participated in Cumberland Heritage museum’s lovely Christmas program for schools today (best hot chocolate ever; need to get recipe!)

    But one thing: they have their reindeer named Donner!!! I pointed out that this was just not right, but seeing as they are a sponsor and all I decided to rat them out to you;)

  2. Mary, nooooo! Clearly it’s time to polish off the reindeer rant and share it with our friends at the museum network!!

    (I did not know they had a school program – that almost makes up for the egregious reindeer error!)

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