Christmas Shopping - Photography Style

In recent years, Wife and I have gone through the exercise of buying each other gifts for Christmas.

Gift buying as you get along in your, financial well-being, relationship and age, starts to be difficult. After all most of the time if you want something, you just get it for yourself. And as you get older, you are looking to have fewer things, not more. But we have both agreed that it is nice to have something under the tree. And to open presents. Even if we are pretty sure we know exactly what they will be.

So it was only a week or so ago that we said, 'yes we should do this so let's get a list put together'. I didn't have too much because I had bought myself what I really wanted for my birthday (great reveal in a post coming soon!). But I did have some books because I'm always hungry for books. And I put down some photographic filters. During one of our workshops in Bologna, the photographer was big into filters and it seems a certain kind would solve a problem we run into all the time with glaring light contrasting with deep shadows.

When it comes to all things photographic, I have kind of a second graders mind while wife is working on her Physics post-doctorate. So the Christmas shopping experience looks kind of like this.

Wife - "I think I would like filters too for Christmas"

Wife furiously goes on line, reads, researches, gets up and measures camera lens, goes back on line. This all might take days. During this period, I will get periodic reports, be called in for my opinion on things like how I might use said lens systems, etc.

Wife will continue furiously researching though with more of a focus on now purchasing and what can be gotten at what prices and the trade offs between buying separately or in a package. More days go by.  Occasionally I get called in for input.

Finally, she announces that she is ready to purchase and goes over the decision with me once more. I watch her from my desk looking over the computer screens.

"How's my shopping for your present coming along?"

"Good dear. They promise it will be here before Christmas. We're both getting the same thing so if you get the boxes you can wrap either one for me."

"Great thanks. Love you."

How Christmas shopping should be.