More Holiday Lights

I posted earlier about the bokeh cut outs. I liked them, I tried to use them on our tree, but what I discovered was I love the look of the round shape the best. You all know that I'm a bokeh addict anyway... I was like a kid in a candy shop with this. I took over a hundred photos in a matter of minutes. Just trying to get the right color combos.

I then had a little fun editing them, I will show some straight up and some that I tweaked a little. It was fun to have something basic to work with. It makes some great abstract art. I might get these printed and put up someday.

This one is my favorite, straight out of the camera. I love the texture of the circles. This was taken on our Cedar tree that is outside. It was just past dusk when I captured these.



This one is also straight out of the camera. This one is from our inside tree. It has a mix of white and colored lights, more of the white. I love the color variations in the whites.



This is the first one with a little adjustments. Just color corrections and such. Nothing major, just enough to make it pop. This was my submisson for this weeks POTW as Round.



This one was tweaked with an action called HDR-ish. I think it made a neonish type exposure. I love the way the tree branches created subtle shadows over some of the circles.



This is one with the white lights, with some color corrections....



This one with some focal softening....



And this one as a kind of pop-art





Happy Holidays,
Lisa

Getting in the holiday spirit

This year I feel like I know my camera enough to experiment a little with it during the holidays. You can probably tell I'm a bokeh addict and I never shoot anything with an aperture higher than 2.8 (I would go lower, but that's as low as I can go, right now).

A few weeks ago, I pondered about bokeh and shapes. My friend Melissa pointed me toward this great website. It shows you how you can make an adapter for your lens to create shaped bokeh from surrounding lights. I showed the idea to Gene and asked if his computerized laser could cut the shapes for me. (I'm worse than a preschooler with scissors). I bought some cardstock and told him the dimensions and he went to town.

Heres what they look like...he cut a variety of shapes and sizes for me, not really knowing what would work.


He made them so they go between the lens and the filter.... like so


Heres what it looks like.... I had to manually unfocus because I didn't have a subject I could put in my foreground to give me an adequate depth of field for the optimal bokeh. I was at a tree trimming party at a friends house and just couldn't wait to try. (Hopefully when we get our tree up later this week I can try out some more).



A few with a full perspective of the tree...




Gene had me be a model so we could try it with a subject in the photo.... (its dark, but you get the picture)


I found that the star shaped worked the best. The snowflake did ok, but it cut off more of the shape then I liked. The heart may have been too big and it was just and odd shaped blob, not really a heart.

Stay tuned for more pretty shaped bokeh posts!

Bokeh

I have a problem with Bokeh. I'm addicted to it. Seriously... I need an intervention. I've had the Tamron for about three months and I don't think I've moved much from 2.8 or 3.2. I need to let it go and dial up sometimes. I have plenty of shots that are ruined because its too tight.

But, then again, I have plenty of shots that are just perfect. This weeks POTW challenge involved my favorite thing.

Several weeks ago, I took some photos of the water lilies in the coy pond. I noticed the other day that there were some more blooming, so I raced out there with my camera. They are still buds, but just as beautiful.

Here is my POTW submission:




Here are some more from that session: