Stratford Christmas Lights

Happy New Year, everyone! To celebrate the start of 2014, I have one last Christmas-related post for this winter. I had hoped to get this posted before the first of the year, but with my trip at the beginning of this week I wasn't able to get to these photos before last night. So, please bear with me through one more Christmas post, and then it's on to other topics! I've got at least 8 posts queued up already, and more coming!

Last Friday night I headed out around our neighborhood to take photos of my neighbor's Christmas lights. I brought a tripod to do some long exposure shots (although these first three were not taken on a tripod), and brought my daughter along to teach her about long exposure using my Powershot on a smaller tripod (you can see her best photos here). While they didn't all come out as hoped, and we got pretty cold by the end, it was a lot of fun to do! Can't wait to see what my neighbors come up with next year.

Outside Christmas Ornaments

We decorated the tree in our front yard with some oversize ornaments; my plan is to slowly accumulate more of these over the years until the tree is fully decorated! While enjoying the beautiful weather this week over Christmas, I grabbed a few photos of the ornaments in the daylight.

Christmas Light Bokeh: Let's make shapes!

 One of my photography-related Christmas presents this year is a Bokeh kit. I've wanted one of these for a while now, but didn't really have any reason for it - that's what Christmas is for! I've posted previously some shots I took using Christmas lights to get that nice bokeh effect, but there's only so much you can do about the shape of the bokeh, as it's based a lot on the sensor for your camera. In order to alter the shape of the lights, you need to place something over the front of the camera lens. You can create your own cut outs in different shapes to alter the light, but I've never really had the patience to do that. So, bring on the kit! It comes with over 20 differently shaped cut outs that I can place over the lens and change the shape of the light. It was then just a matter of finding a subject and the right cut out...and here's what I came up with!

Christmas Portraits

 The holidays provides a lot of opportunities for adorable photos of the kids, and this year was no different. I was only able to get a few of the more traditional shots that I wanted to get, as my son would not cooperate. But that's ok  - my daughter made up for her lack of brother by bringing on the cuteness!

 

Christmas Light Bokeh

This year is the first time that I've had the physical space, equipment, and time to truly try to capture Christmas light bokeh. For those of you who may not know, "bokeh" is a Japanese term for how the lens renders the out of focus part of a photo - for example, the light in the background. By positioning objects in different locations in the foreground, you can make some very interesting effects! I've had a lot of fun this week experimenting with bokeh, and will have more to share! For now, here are the Christmas-y subjects I used earlier in the week.

A snowy birthday

Two weeks ago today was my daughter's birthday. We woke up to gray skies and heavy snow falling, but were able to go outside twice that day despite the weather! Later in the afternoon, when the sun came out, I headed outside to take photos. She wanted to take photos with me, so of course I took the chance to grab some unique photos of the birthday girl in the snow. It doesn't hurt that they are also photos of her being a photographer!

 

Winter Wonderland

Two weeks ago today, we had the first real snow of the season. It started Monday night (exactly two weeks ago), and when we woke up Tuesday (which also happened to be my daughter's birthday) the snow was thickly coming down. It was too snowy to risk going outside with my camera, but I grabbed a few shots of the snow on the pond with the geese from the safety of my kitchen (using my 70-300mm lens). So beautiful!

Two family photo shoots

In November I had the pleasure to do two separate family photo shoots - it made for a busy month! I put full sneak peeks of both families on Facebook, but wanted to show my favorite shots from each shoot here. Both shoots were at Morven Park, but ended up so different from each other! That's one of the things that I love most: finding a beautiful location and then personalizing it for each person/family.

Making Art

On Black Friday we took our children to the Crayola Experience in Pennsylvania. I've posted details about the trip on my family blog here; while there, we were surrounded by so much creativity that I had to get a few artistic shots of my own to share here!

Disney on Ice

Back in October, my family and I attended Disney on Ice: Celebration! At the Patriot Center. We were up fairly high, but that's ok - it let me put my telephoto lens to good use!