NYC & Princeton Photographer for Family Holiday Cards

Have you started thinking about holiday cards yet?

If you’ve worked with us in the past, you know we give a lot of time and thought to our holiday cards every year. Our goal is to send you something different — a little surprise when you open the envelope.

But guess what. We’re just like you. We haven’t figured out what to do for our holiday cards yet, either.

At some as-yet-to-be-determined time in the near future (before Halloween!!!), we will sit down and brainstorm. Then we’ll just go out and make The Magic happen.

Now, regarding The Magic… there’s always a back story behind every holiday card we send.

Last year, we did our photo shoot at a Buddhist temple in Japan. It ended up being one of our favorite cards yet. Read on, though, to hear what REALLY happened behind the scenes….

We knew we wanted to do our holiday card photo shoot in Japan, because it’s such a beautiful place and so meaningful to us, and we wanted to share it with you. However, like many of you, we procrastinated a bit on this family portrait session.

A couple days before we were due to return to the US from our vacation in Japan last year, we realized we still hadn’t taken family photos and there wasn’t much time left. So we looked at our schedule and determined that the only available time slot would be first thing in the morning on our last full day in Japan.

What REALLY Happened

On the appointed day, we had to wake up very early. Why? Because it was August, scorching hot, with humidity hovering around 100%. In order to get good pictures, we knew we had to get there as early as possible.

And the place we wanted to go, a local Buddhist temple, wasn’t close to public transportation. We had to walk there, probably a mile or two, with part of the route a very steep hill.

Keep in mind that we were doing this with a 3-year-old. Neither he nor our daughter (who was 12 at the time) were overjoyed to have to wake up at the crack of dawn and trudge more than a mile uphill to a deserted temple.

By the time we got to the temple the expressions on their faces were more like sweaty scowls than angelic smiles.

“I wish I was still in bed!” our daughter snarled.

“I’m thirsty!” our son whined. “I want to go home!”

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I had to take drastic action to change the mood.

“Let’s ring all the bells in the temple!!!” I suggested with great enthusiasm.

The kids glared at me. I smiled encouragingly. Kyo got his camera into place and started clicking.

I bounced up to the nearest bell rope, rummaged for a 100-yen coin, and threw it in the donation box (at Buddhist temples in Japan, the tradition is that you donate a coin to the temple each time you ring the bell). I held the rope out toward the kids. Now, what kid could resist ringing a gigantic iron bell, all by themselves?

They moseyed over, glanced suspiciously at me, and started pulling the rope together.