Tag Archives: Holiday Season

Photos, Troy's Blog

Merry Christmas!

With many holidays being celebrated, albeit in a more subdued fashion, I wanted to create some nice black and white images. My family celebrates Christmas so that’s my focus for these pictures. This is not typically my style of photography. Color is often an important piece of a photograph for me but in the past few weeks I’ve been inspired to create some black and white pictures for the holiday season. Maybe it’s because color is a bit of a challenge at this time of year or the pandemic has me in this type of mood. I don’t know but it’s something that provided some motivation and excitement with the camera.

All decked out for the holidays

While looking for a subject of these black and white images I searched for inspiration. There wasn’t anything coming to mind initially on what would make a beautiful photo so I turned to searching the web for black and white photos. It didn’t take long for me to begin to think of what I would like to shoot in this manner. With so many people posting their pictures now it’s easier to find a little inspiration with a lot of amazing work being done.

Poinsettias are something that I have access too and are such a beautiful plant that I wanted to work with that subject. Another concept was the many places that transform their public areas into a beautiful holiday scene in December. A simple candle flame can be a magical picture which I have not attempted before. This seemed like a good time to try. This black and white concept hasn’t gone away so I’ll probably explore it further as the weeks progress.

Whatever holiday is celebrated in your household, I wish you the best one possible! For my family – Merry Christmas!

A single candle burning through the night

Family Ramblings, Troy's Blog

Holiday Displays

Winter '10 019

Most years I like to add a few holiday decorations to the inside and outside of my house. Typically I will use the traditional lights to decorate areas inside and outside along with some evergreen branches, a few wreaths, and maybe some birch branches if I have access to them. This year, however, I used a few braches from our Christmas tree to decorate one container outside and also covered other areas that house plants and annuals during the summer and a couple of wreaths that the kids decorated. That was it. I guess there was less motivation to do anymore since many years we have holiday celebrations but this year we didn’t host any.

As I was reflecting on my lack of holiday decorating I began to wonder how all of this began. What was the motivation for someone to begin decorating for this holiday season. Apparently this idea of decorating for the holidays all began in Germany with using candles to decorate Christmas trees. I recall learning about early Christmas tree decorating but didn’t connect this to our outdoor décor. Once electricity was invented, the use of colored lights outside was first used by a theater to promote the opening of an opera. After that, businesses started to use this practice which eventually made its way into our homes. If you’re interested in learning more details go here….

It is very intriguing for me to think about starting out with attaching candles to evergreen trees (I can only image the number of fires that must have caused) to using thousands of colored lights placed all over our streets, businesses, and houses. These lights are now used in animatronics and set to music. After going through some videos of holiday decorations on YouTube, it’s difficult to not get inspired to decorate more.

 

Holiday Lights

Family Ramblings, Troy's Blog

Poinsettias Everywhere

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Look at All the Poinsettias I Get to Play With

Trees, glitter, and yes … poinsettias! It’s the holiday season and the atmosphere has evolved all over. I work for a company that decorates commercial buildings for these winter holidays. My specialty is poinsettias. All I do is work with these beautiful flowers to transform buildings into a holiday wonderland. The last few weeks have been exhausting both physically and mentally trying to keep everything straight for each customer.

Poinsettias Almost Ready!

Some preparations begin as soon as July when greenhouse growers begin planting poinsettias for the upcoming season. Fortunately at this time there is little to be done as many of my customers aren’t even close to deciding what they want for holiday décor so they don’t give me any orders until later. Later usually begins in September after Labor Day when people arrive at the conclusion that summer is over and the inevitable winter season is soon to follow. At this time I am just organizing these orders and filing them for about a month. Around mid-October begins the fun. This is when I begin visiting different greenhouses checking up on the poinsettia quality and strengthening existing relationships and building new relationships with those that produce these bright flowers.

Many of These Pieces Need to be Coordinated Ahead of Time

For the next several weeks my focus is on what each customer is looking for and preparing for each installation of poinsettia. As much as can be accomplished must be done ahead of time and with as much accuracy as possible because once the actual installations begin there is usually only time to concentrate on that days agenda and possibly the next day. There is no time or energy left to think about what needs to be done later in the week or the following week and maintain any sense of efficiency.

Waiting to Arrive at Their Final Destination

I lead a team of people during the holiday madness that is responsible for creating unique displays of poinsettias with the sole intent of getting peoples attention and helping to make a festive environment. Most members of this team have been doing this for several years now and all know what needs to be done and do it very well. There are people that unpack these plants and find a place to store them for a day or two while others pack them up again and bring them to their final destination. Also, there is some arrangement work to be done and there are those whose responsibility include these arrangements.

Poinsettias Mixed With Birch

As soon as all of these poinsettias are put in their place it is time to plan for their removal. While the holiday season lasts for about 5 –6  weeks, it takes about 2 weeks to install of them and another week or two to remove them so there is little time in between. Although I spend about 2 months working with poinsettias and about 8 months trying to forget about it, the simple thought about the 100,000’s of people that see and enjoy these displays makes it all worth while. In addition, after it is all over and usually before it is all over I am ready to travel and explore new places to aid in my recovery.

A Dressed Up Poinsettia

This time it will be South Florida and most likely the Keys!