"Help!" was the name of The Beatles' soundtrack album from their 1965 movie of the same name. The album cover of the original UK release (above) is slightly different than that of the US release (below).
I chose this album cover because I was just learning Photoshop at the time, and it was the simplest iconic photo I could come up with to mimic. (A few of our earlier holiday cards employed Photoshop, but had relied on outside expertise.)
Each family member was shot individually against a green screen and combined in Photoshop. The costumes were primarily from eBay (Ethan already had his top hat and raincoat, and Jen and I shared my black running tights). I had to colorize the coats, as they were various shades in real life.
Trivia: The album cover features the group with their arms positioned to spell out a word in flag semaphor. According to cover photographer, they intended to spell the word "HELP," but it didn't look good, so they ended up spelling "NUJV."
In 2003 the album was ranked #332 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. (They must have been listening to the UK version instead of the US version, which had several stupid sitar instrumentals, which were pretty much un-listenable.)
I must say that I was surprised that so few people were familiar with the album cover that our holiday photo was referencing. Pretty much only people over 40.
