It is that time of year again when the attics are raided and the decorations are hung. Around the Peterson homestead, we take this Christmas thing preeeety seriously. It’s a very much past down tradition incorporating family tree ornaments from Germany in the late 1800s to homemade one fresh off the craft table. Sharon has her favorite Christmas movies playing in the Dvd and Moose his Christmas punch. Ho ho ho!
And of course documenting it all is the camera, from D3s to D7000 to S9100. One subject I love to play with every year are the ornaments, trying to make a simple click of their mere hanging around. Many do this with the use of a flash (top photo). They languish as they try to mix the light source of the flash with the tree lights. The flash of course blasts out so much light when it sees all the green of the tree and then you have its 5500k and that of the xmas lights which are what, 2400k, maybe. That warm xmas glow just ain’t there in the photo and the pain of the flash, well takes the Christmas joy out of the whole shoot. What to do?
Well, there are really lots of ways of going about getting this shot. I tend to take the path of least pine needles. Shooting in AWB with either the 60 or 105mc, using a tripod compose your frame. In this regard I cheat a little because we have a gorgeous artificial tree (living in a forest, we can get our pine sent by just opening the door). Because it’s an artificial tree, I can bend the limbs anyway I want to get the shot. This includes, yeap, that tree lights. This scene wasn’t originally lit like this, I moved them lights around, grabbed a silver ornament as a mini reflector and set the whole thing up. Then, I just went click. So those little lights brightening up your spirits, might just be able to give you a lesson in lighting as well. That brings a whole new meaning to Christmas cheer!