An Idea for a Christmas Present

You're in trouble!  You need to buy something!

I suggest you slow down for a minute, and do some real thinking about what that person wants.  They've probably told you in some subtle way, though maybe you weren't listening at the time.  Instead of coming up with another bauble to buy from Amazon, why not take a picture for them, and have it framed?

Slow down again.  This won't be a picture of you, or a picture of the other person.  Instead, find something to shoot that will actually mean something to them.  You'll need to go back over some things they've said, or places you've been together, in order to find the clues.  Let me give you an example of something that happened to me, so that you can start to recognize those clues.

The History
My father passed away about 25 years ago, and my mother's been living on her own every since.  (Don't worry, she wouldn't have it any other way!)  She lives in a mountain home with an absolutely wonderful view of the Colorado High Country, and it's the last home she'll ever live in.  I grew up in that home, so I'm quite familiar with the view, and I also know how important it is to her.

Additionally, she misses my dad.  She says she''s often dreamed of the two of them on airplanes, hers just behind his, off to find their next adventure.

Those two observations didn't at first seem to be related.  But in pondering her views of her life and situation, I put together something in my head that I knew I had to shoot.  You can do the same thing.  Go back over some history you have with this person you want to create something for, and distill that history into a couple of important points.  Don't worry, you don't have to ignore the rest of who they are!  You'll have opportunities later to come up with other meaningful remembrances.  For now, just use two, and then come up with a way incorporate them into a single photograph.  It can be literal, but in my case, I constructed my desired photograph from three pictures, creating something that has never existed in real life.  But you don't need to do that!  You can use ONE picture, either somewhere outdoors, or constructed in a little free space in your apartment.  The setting doesn't matter.  What matters is the sentiment and content.

The first picture I used was a view from her house of the mountains.  The second and third were of contrails I saw as as I stood on the deck of her home.  The contrails weren't in the right place in the sky, so I needed to do some postproduction work.

Combining the three gave me this image:

Contrails in Evergreen, Colorado, with Mt. Evans in the background

It shows her and my dad, off on their next adventure as the sun sets, her just a bit behind him.  Believe me, I know this picture doesn't mean much to you, my loyal reader.  It's not supposed to.  It needs to mean something that is specific to its recipient, and I promise you, she cries every time she looks at it on her wall.  At that gave me a Merry Christmas.

Now go out there and start shooting!