You deserve a lot of credit for your blog. Always nice images, and this is a very nice one too!

Your reflections here are very clever. I'm still not sure where you are and I've had my nose right up to the monitor!

Very nice, Dave. Well composed and lit. I noticed from your EXIF that you used two flashes. How'd you set that up?

peterv: I'm right in the middle of each bauble, hiding behind my camera which was on a tripod.

Alec: I meant to talk about how this was lit in the description. Anyway, I recently bough a new flash, the 580EX, and already had a 420EX. The 420 will operate as a slave flash; i.e. it can be controlled wirelessly from the main flash, so for this shot the main flash (camera mounted) is bounced off the right hand wall of our lounge and the 420 is bounced off the other wall. I did try bouncing one or both off the ceiling but I kept over-exposing the top of the decorations.

Sono ormai 2 mesi che ti ho scoperto, grazie ad un articolo della rivista "IL FOTOGRAFO" e da quel giorno, mi hai fatto innamorare della Fotografia...

Ogni giorno riesci a pubblicare uno scatto più bello del precedente; sei il mio mito e spero di diventare anche solo un decimo bravo di quello che sei tu.

BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVO.

Quando io penso ad una bella Foto penso alle tue.
Scusa se ho scritto in Italiano, ma se ci provavo in Inglese, non mi capivi tu e non capivo neanche io, cosa stavo scrivendo; l'unica cosa che mibasta che tu capisca è la seguente:

WONDERFULL, you're the Best.

Luca: as I don't speak Italian this is the best I can do, courtesy of Google:

Grazie. Non parlo l'italiano in modo da Google usato per tradurre il vostro commento. Sono sicuro che non ha ottenuto tutto di destra ma gli ho capito la maggior parte. Sono felice voi gradisco il chromasia.

My apologies to anyone who speaks Italian as I'm sure this is probably a terrible translation.

First thaught when I saw this photo, oh a guarranteed noteworthy on pf. Congratulations on the nomination !

Very nice and timely interpretation of "reflection". I love it

Exceptionally impressive!

Family photos cant get any better than this during the holiday season.. well, only if you were dressed up as santa and your tripod had a glowly red light on it ;)

are you going to use this for your xmas cards :)

I love it! My favorite submission so far...

Wow, I'm amazed at your photos everyday. I aspire to become as good as you one day. So creative, so...ingenius.

Puts me in the holiday spirit...awesome.

Hi. Long time viewer, first time commenter.
Im no photo geek yet, so no techie talk here. Just wanted to let you know that i love your photos, and i come here every night to check out whats up. Bet that counts somewhere too.. Just felt like leaving a comment, now that i've voted for you and all. Followed the rest for a few days, and still feel like you deserve it. Well upthere too.

My apologies to anyone who speaks English as I’m sure this is probably a terrible translation :o)

Wonderful shot ... very warming....

Aww merry xmas!

Perhaps you and I will agree on what makes a good spaghetti sauce more than we do on composition, David.

I think you're on the right track in a lot of ways, and I think your mastery of technique is far better than mine.

Here's what I like: you are in the background of each reflection, and one of the least noticeable parts of the reflections. That's rather cool, and humble. I'm likin' that.

Here's what I would have done differently, and this is only meant as a different idea, not a suggestion that you're "wrong."

I wouldn't have done four balls: I'd have done one, in the same position as the second one from left (it's located very nicely), and put other ornaments in the surrounding areas, less eye-catching ones. For one thing, that would draw the eye to one single object. Myself, I don't like arranging objects for a picture (in my 200+ shots online, I think only two or three are "arranged," all others are "encountered" -- but this reflects our tastes, I'm sure).

Feel free to chant back "I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you." :-)

Ok David I already vote for you site since I really thing you deserve it. I may not sound very original with this but I would have to say the same thing that HH did. My apologiesfor all those of you who speack englis. I am a spanich spoken girl and I now my english is awful. But I try hard. I don't know any thing about porography but I am trying to learn. Any sugestion David? I think that i had a bad start since I already saw a lot of wonderful picturesin your blog that I may not be able to get. (lol)

HH and Adriana: thank you. My grasp of different languages is very poor, so you've done way better than I could.

Frank: tomatoes are good, black pepper, herbs ... ;-)

As for the composition: the encountered/arranged point is interesting, and I do know what you mean, but isn't the choice to position yourself with respect to an object and the choice of focal length a kind of arrangement?

And I did think about using one decoration, but this is as close as I can get with this lens and I wanted to emphasise the reflections (given that that's the theme for Photo Friday). The other problem with using one decoration is lighting the image evenly. While I managed to get enough light onto each of them without blowing out any of the highlights, you'll note that surrounding areas of the tree of quite dark. Had there only been one decoration (and some other ornaments) I think the intervening spaces would have been too dark and unevenly lit.

All that said, I suspect that this does just reflect a difference in taste ;-)

What a wonderfully unique and creative family portrait. Fantastic idea, and nicely executed. :)

Very nice, great shot for the holidays!

Voted for your photoblog! Keep it up..

Luca said something like that: It's is now 2 months since I find out about your blog thanks to an article in a magazine called Il Fotografo, and since then I am in love with your photos. Every day you are able to publish a photo better than the other. You are my Myth and I just hope one day I could be just 1/10 of what you are.
Bravo!
I am sorry I am writing in Italian but you wouldn't understand my poor English. The only thing I can write and you will understand is:
Wonderful, you're the best!

Maxine said: Oh well my English is not that good as well but I think you can have Luca's picture now :)
By the way, wonderful photo Dave!

very british! :-)

I noticed a referral from this comments page in my stats, but I don't see any links to me here. I hope you didn't have to delete any stupid comments from one of my 12 readers. :-) Anyway, nice images and if I have to loose to someone on this list I would rather it be you than some of the others.

Thanks everyone, for your comments and votes at the Weblog Awards.

Maxine: thanks for the translation, you did a much better job of it than Google :-)

Brooks: thanks. The link is in the last sentence of the news section (at the end of the comments and before the comment box), so no, it wasn't anything to do with any of your readers.

Oh. I see it now. Can I request to be linked to in a different word? :-) kidding of course.

Congratulations for the nomination!
You should be the only one competing!
Have a Merry Christmas!
MM

Thats it!!!! Gonna buy a xmas tree today!!!! this is lovely, warm and very homely. First impression felt a tad Marks and Spencers (yuck) but the reflected image of real family life saved this very festive shot....off for a mince pie....

Brilliant composition. I love doing reflections to create self-portraits. I just never thought of using a Christmas ball! This is an incredible shot. Thanks for sharing!

GREAT shot... i used a similar shot for this years Christmas cards and like someone mentioned earlier, this would make a nice one as well...

i used a canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on my shot: http://www.lifeatf8.com/temp/mcard.jpg

i LOVE reflective photos like that!