For those interested, it is the 2010 ornament which recalls 25th US President William McKinley and the annual Army Naval Reception held at the White House in 1900. McKinley's presidency was cut short a few months later when he was shot by an assassin six months after his second term commenced.
One of my objectives during the year is to try different styles of photography and still life is not something I have done before. This subject seemed to be as good a place to start as any and as the tree is coming down in the next day or two it was now or December if I was going to include it in my PAD.
One decision to be made was whether the ornament should be sharp front to back. I concluded that having part of it out of focus added to the feeling of depth as I wanted a bit more than a straight record shot. For that reason, I took it an angle rather than head on. I used a white reflector to lighten the left hand side and also had to do some pruning to have just enough of the tree's branches in the foreground. I later removed the bit of foliage at bottom right, but the image seemed that bit flatter without it.
