Xmas Inventions

2006 – Star & Snowflake

The original diptych is still one of my all-time favourites. I went down the Kilburn High Road for some Christmas decorations and when I opened them up, I thought, 'These would make great headdresses...' The rest, as they say, is history.

2007 – The Holly & the Ivy

Inspired in part by the Dickensian Ghost of Christmas Past...

2009 – Technicolour Christmas

Some festive knitwear, a pipe, imitation snow and snowball...

2010 – German Woodcut

I ordered some paper decorations online, opened the bells and saw epaulets. Combined this with some brown package paper for a backdrop and a false moustache for Xac and – hussah!

2012 – St Petersburg

What can I say... there's a lot of snow in Russia...?

2013 – A la Francais

Inspiration came to combine a new house card with Xmas when we bought Maison Valentine in SW France.

2014 – 90s Cool Kids

Lola came up with the idea for this bubblegum tribute to 90s kids shows from the US.

2014/15 – Easter in Ole' Mexico

So we missed Christmas and decided to go down ole Mexico Way with a Dolce & Gabbanesque nod to Mariachi and a dash of Frida Karlo. Makeup: Michele Hier

2015 – The Dutch School

Xac as man with a Christmas turban and Lola as Girl with a Pom-Pom Earring. Makeup: Michele Hier

Surrealist Christmas

A nod to the great surrealist photographers, these were produced in B&W and colour and were our last in the series.

It all started when...

I had kids. My daughter, Lola was my original subject. And Christmas just had to be done. When Xac arrived, I started photographing the kids together. In 2006 we began diptychs with a Christmassy twist. We played dress-up and things kinda escalated... Michele Hier began makeup in 2014/5 for our only Easter card.

The ‘limited edition’ cards, totalling 11, have become something of an institution amongst family and friends and been collected. And since the kids are grown up now, something I’d like to carry on and extend to other arenas. So if you fancy playing dress-up with us or you have a project that needs a bit of creative characterisation, get in touch.