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My photograph for 2010 was of red, yellow & blue spaghetti with half Brussels sprouts.
It was my first humorous (but still artistic) photographic Christmas card. I came up with the idea of gaudy spaghetti as food (along with my popular cakes etc.) for a rainbow colour themed fancy dress dance party in 2008. I made it by boiling the spaghetti in separate pans in which red, yellow & blue food. I then mixed the coloured waters to give orange, green & purple secondary colours likewise. Coating the cooked spaghetti with a little olive oil prevented different colour strands staining eachother afterwards. Having caused amusement at that party, I remade it in early 2009 for another party but missed out the secondary colours as it looked brighter with just the primaries and added some sprouts because I had them to hand and the colour went well. The sprouts were lightly microwaved which not only tastes better than traditional British long boiling but preserves the light bright green colour. I cut them in half to show off the more detailed patterning inside. Before taking them to the buffet, I photographed the bowlful. I had not realised the Christmas connection and I short-listed for the card it simply because it was cheerily colourful. It was the friend whom I asked for preferences from my short-list who spotted the accidentally humorous connection to Christmas via the Brussels sprouts! (Cultural note for foreigners: Brussels sprouts are considered by many Brits as the most revolting vegetable in traditional British cuisine, probably because the traditional long boiling method of cooking them turns them into overcooked sulphurous smelling slimy mush, yet they nevertheless a traditional element of current Christmas dinner main course along with turkey, roast potatoes, gravy, bread sauce and stuffing. They are commonly included mainly as a joke and are often left uneaten.)
Camera = Panasonic FZ20.
The border was a duplicate of last year's.
Card assembly instructions to duplicate the original:
Printing the border & photograph together on a colour printer does not give as good results (neither home laser nor inkjet printers have yet reached photographic printing quality). It also costs more (because of the ridiculous current price of printer ink) and gives a more mass-produced look.
For the rest of my Christmas cards, go up to my Christmas card gallery page.
