Night Holiday Shots | Before it's too late

[PhotoRob]

It's our 1st holiday season with the new camera and I'd like some C&C on shooting holiday lights / decorations before it's too late (the old not practice, but perfect-practice that makes perfect mantra...).

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate the help...

Effort #1 :





ISO 400, f/1.8, 1/20sec, handheld, manual focus, 35mm (x crop), .3+ EV

[Tygart]

I like it, great idea.
Those lights are cool!

[Mark von Kanel]

Hi Rob, for hand held you did a good job, well done, i think id have used a tripod and gone for a deeper depth of field though

[revi]

One thing is to start early in the day, before the sky loses colour (it'll feel as if you are too early, but that's good):
that'll give you the possibility to get both the lights and the environment (buildings etc.) in the image,
and with some luck you get a nice sky for free.

Of course, once it gets dark, tripods etc. are needed, but that's not specific to this kind of shooting

[Shadowman]

I tried, there was a home beautifully decorated but this group of people chose that very lawn front to have a discussion and I grew tired of waiting for them to move.

[PhotoRob]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions; I meant to say 'before the season has passed us by
when I said 'too late' - will certainly keep at it and work in the advice...

[GrahamH]

I actually really like the depth of field, you can tell what the background contains, but only just, leaves room of imagination.
The smallest part of the holiday scene (normally) is a single light, you need many to make the overall scene.
Whereas this image gives pride of place to the smallest, leaving the biggest in a more minor role.
Love the contrast of size.
Also well exposed.
Great image.

Graham

[Dave Humphries]

I'm with Graham - it works for me too as it stands with narrow DoF and (well, almost) round, defocused lights.

The only minor suggestion would be to clone out the distant white blob peeking behind the left hand edge of the green lamp glass (second in line).

Very good Rob, I like the path, the grass, the composition with the pink tree lights.

Cheers,

[PhotoRob]

Thank you very much Graham, David for commenting, I really appreciate it! Will continue to try and interject a little style, or as it was described to emphasize the 'minor' role in this series to keep things as interesting as possible within my limited skill set.

It was either Colin or maybe Dave that mentioned adding a little negative space to improve the workable crop of an image; my inclination was maybe to do so on the left side of the frame; what do you think? Dave, I'll see about knocking out that white blob of light you're referring to...

[shaknbak]

I like this a lot. Very cool idea. Although being from the midwest I was caught a little off gaurd by the green grass in December ;-)

[PhotoRob]

Thanks Gregg, the year round grass does take getting used to for sure...