To a Happy New Year!

31 December 2007, Photography

The Steineckert family Christmas card... my final post for 2007. After tons of headache with the concepts for this shot, the Capenter's Christmas was my final inspiration.

Blogged By:

Bryan

What a year! I launched my redesigned commercial site almost a year ago, and followed it closely with the the launch of my completely custom blog, just a few months later. In that short time nearly 20,000 of you have visited from all around the world to see my work, helping us reach nearly 300,000 hits by the year end! In short, an over 500% increase since last year, thanks to you.

Many of you have asked about other resources concerning my work, such as:

-websites
-blogs
-video's
-classes
-training courses
-seminars
-links
-tutorials

I will say, that with my plans for this upcoming year, there will be many ways to see me, and my work. Both through physical means, and digitally. Infact, all day tomorrow I will be working closely with one my web designers to complete yet another website... RealityShoot.com which I hope to have launched within a week or so! It will be showcasing my latest obsession with twisted photographic reality. I will announce the launch on this blog, so stay tuned!

So, I leave 2007 with a quick "thanks" to those who have been so helpful to me, with all that has happened this past year. Thank you to: my wife Tami, and family, Clint Decker, Matt Hurst, Simon Blundell, Tim Fellow, Ed McCulloch, Jim Heiser, and Frank Bonomo at Apple, Branden Steineckert, J-Four, Matt Wood, Dane Hansen, Natalie from Digital Photographer Magazine UK, The Black Book, especially Joe & Magi, my new friends at Joseph Reps, especially Joseph Pritchard and his family, the UVSC theater department especially Steve and Carla, all of my students, Matt Clayton from Square magazine, Canon for all your amazing products, Apple for products that seriously changed my life, all of my dedicated blog readers and other fans, and lastly, everyone else that helped get me where I am today. For all those I didn't mention... sorry, I refuse to take my pills:), but THANK YOU!

Many of you know Branden Steineckert, formally of the "Used", and now the full-time drummer of "Rancid". Branden first contacted me to do some work for him, a few weeks before I flew to NY for Apple. He quickly became the subject in the photo I used for the presentation, and has since become a good friend. About a month ago, he and his wife asked if I would do their Christmas card, and so, this image was born.

As a young boy, my family had many Christmas traditions. One of those, that I have since continued with my own family, has been that of Christmas music. My mother was a huge Karen Carpenter fan, and I remember listening to her year round. She especially enjoyed "Christmas Portrait", which --on its cover-- shows a rather husky Santa, painting with the assistance of one of his elves. The illustration has a very Norman Rockwell feel to it, and it always stuck out to me. I knew I wanted to do a Christmas card like this someday, and felt the Steineckert's were perfect for the part.

Though somewhat more simple than other work I have done, I believe it was all that this image needed to help create the feeling of a fun little Christmas morning. So with that I wish to say, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and have a great, and Happy New Year!

Thank you all, from your dedicated artist, Bryan Niven

REPLIES

1 January 2008 - 7:23:31 - ED

Enjoy the new year as well! It should be a fun one-
-ED

15 January 2008 - 3:24:18 - rhana

I love the Norman Rockwell look. In fact when I looked at this composite I thought this looks different from most of Bryan’s work but familiar…… It wasn’t until I continued to read that I realized yeah that’s it, it looks like Normal Rockwell but in a photo kind of what. My mom had a big book of his art when I was a kid and I loved it.

This shows Branden in a much different way than in your earlier composite of him........ and by the way where is Spike anyway?

And yes yes you are a dedicated artist!!!

4 June 2008 - 19:20:58 - mandey

Aww this is a very good picture.. you are a very dedicated artist and very good one too.

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