Christmas Tree

Christmas Lights in Old Town Albuquerque Bokeh Photography 2019

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Christmas Lights in Old Town Albuquerque Bokeh Photography 2019

Christmas lights better off of focus

One of my own personal favorite photos of all time that I made involved Christmas lights. These shots are quite different from that one, but one thing remains, I like Christmas lights out of focus better than in focus! Strings of lights make are an excellent opportunity to test out the bokeh quality of a lens, and my new Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART lens impressed me with roundness of the light circles due to its 9-blade design. I took the lens mounted on to my Sony a7R IV on a stroll around Old Town Albuquerque during the annual tree lighting event, but the tree itself was not interesting to me to photograph. Much more interesting were these hidden shots I found around small stores and down old alleyways. Scroll down for a top photo tip!

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Free Christmas Tree Ornament Bokeh Background

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Free Christmas tree ornament bokeh background - click to download the full resolution versionJason Collin Photography is offering a free Christmas tree ornament bokeh background to use as a digital background for composite images, as a texture to overlay or simply as a desktop wallpaper.  Click the above image to download the full resolution version.

The above portrait was made outside.  I simply cut out the subject and placed her upon the Christmas tree ornament bokeh background to add a festive holiday look to the photo.  Tell us how you used the background in the comments below.

Holiday Photo Card Portraits with Caroline & Evan in St Petersburg

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Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/250th Strobist: SB-800 on light stand to frame left @ 1/2 powerWhen another professional photographer asks to hire you to take their portrait, it is flattering . . . and also makes you nervous as you know they know what exactly a good photograph is.  So when local St. Petersburg friend and colleague Caroline of CSE Photography asked me to photograph her, her husband and their dogs for their holiday photo cards, I was both excited and a bit worried about doing a job good another to satisfy another pro.

The dip! -- Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/250th Strobist: SB-800 to left SB-600 to rightActually I was not really worried because I have known Caroline (and Evan) for a little while now and they are both super friendly.  We have had meetings and shared photography business tips and ideas.  You might be surprised how freely professional photographers share information despite being competitors.  For me the reasons are because it is a great way to get real world tips, and there is no real concern about direct competition because no one, or dozen, photographers can possibly photograph every wedding in the city!

The shot above I was most excited to make as Caroline said she and Evan would properly demonstrate "the dip."  Everyone take note!

Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: SB-800 on light stand to frame leftMy whistling ability came in handy once they brought their dogs to the park.  As often happens with photographing dogs, they were very much interested in everything except looking at the camera.  A sharp whistle got their attention as I had my Nikon ready, snap, everyone looking into the lens!  Really though they were good girls.  It would have been much harder to try and wrangle my own dog, Kiki, for a portrait like that!

Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/5 ISO 200 1/200th Strobist: SB-800 on light stand to frame leftThe above shot was a bit of pre-visualization.  I wanted to use the sun as a natural backlight for this portrait.  It took a bit of fiddling with the settings to get Caroline and Evan in an acceptable exposure while keeping the highlights of the sun in the background.  I needed to keep a 1/200th shutter speed to insure a sharp shot and did not want to use anything but the minimum ISO, so I only adjust the aperture on my D300 and the power coming out of the SB-800 speedlight.

Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/11 ISO 200 1/250th Strobist: SB-800 to left SB-600 to rightCaroline really liked Even in his black jacket.  I liked the idea of Evan leaning coolly against the palm tree.  Put those two things together, plus processing in Silver Efex Pro, and the results are a kind of (in my mind) throwback "fly boy" portrait.  In case you were wondering what were the settings to use when shooting in bright afternoon sunlight, I often use:  f/11 ISO 200 (D300's minimum) 1/250th (manual exposure mode) and set my speedlights to 1/2 power (manual mode).  

I had a lot of fun during this portrait session.  It is always nice to be able to photograph people you know.  It definitely adds something.  There is a certain comfort level and a different kind of creative feeling that must come only from having previously known someone.  Thanks again Caroline, Evan and the pups!