Before the Lights Come Down

Sunset at Shallowford Square was the perfect time to create this HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo yielding unbelievable detail throughout.

Prelude to an Uncertain Photo

Boy, was this image ever fun to work on! Of course, it wasn’t fun when I first thought I should go back out in the cold to get the shot! After all, it was New Year’s Eve, and I’d already spent a good portion of the day photographing the first phase of the Nissen House move.

When I arrived home after photographing at the Nissen House site, it felt so good to be in from the cold and the wind. I immediately began offloading the day’s images from the memory cards and was anxious to start editing them.

And then it occurred to me that, with all the December activities, I’d not managed to make any wide-angle shots of Shallowford Square decorated with its Christmas lights. I knew the lights would probably be up for about a week more, so I could wait till another day, if I’d like. But the reality was that there was no guarantee that my schedule and the weather would coincide ideally before the lights were taken down.

Decisions, Decisions

It’s times like this when I sometimes battle with myself, and I don’t always make the best long-term decision. I should photograph such-and-such, but….

If I’m too lax with myself, I’ll miss out on some good photos that can’t be easily or quickly replicated, if at all. On the other hand, photography doesn’t completely control my life, so I’m not compulsively driven to capture every single moment.

A few weeks earlier, my excursions to photograph Christmas lights were under different conditions. For instance, the photo for the Never Forgotten post was shot during a cloudy sunrise, and the photo for the Lights, Camera…Snow? post was taken at pitch dark. I’d since determined that my next attempt at Christmas light photography would involve photographing them just prior to, during and after a cloudless sunset.

So as I looked out the front window at the brilliant, clear sunlight of the remaining hours of New Year’s Eve, I made the somewhat ambivalent decision to head up to Shallowford Square for a sunset shot of the Christmas lights.

Overcoming the Elements

As I stepped out of my truck at Shallowford Square, the wind seemed to rip right through my winter layers. I nevertheless began walking around the Square to scout out a good spot for the first shots. I put my camera on a tripod and used a cable release to take several series of bracketed shots. Because the light changes rapidly at sunset, I shot subsequent series of bracketed shots every minute or two.

The wind could have posed a problem, because longer exposures might have yielded some blurry images of the lights on the trees, which in this case, I did not want. Fortunately, I managed to capture a series of shots with no movement blur that were perfect candidates for creating the HDR (High Dynamic Range) image shown above. (To learn more about HDR photography, please check out the info in my Moving Along post.)

With numerous series of bracketing and on-the-spot adjustments, I was able to capture three distinct compositions at the Square within about 45 minutes, before the sky turned black. (Good timing, as my fingers were so numb that I was by then not able to unscrew the cable release from the camera body.)

I gladly wrapped up the shoot and headed back home to continue editing the Nissen House images into the wee hours of the morning. By sunrise on New Year’s Day, I was back at the Nissen House site for phase two of the house’s move.

Reaping the Reward

Several days later is when the fun really began with the photo that might never have been, and I created the HDR image of Shallowford Square shown above. If I’d yielded to the temptation not to photograph at the Square on New Year’s Eve, would I have gotten a pleasing shot before the Christmas lights were taken down? Would the weather have cooperated? Would my schedule have worked out? Who knows? I only know that I may have come close to NOT getting this nice shot.

What you can’t see very well in this photo, because of its relatively small size, are the crisp, beautiful details in the bricks, the nearby roof, the lights, the bushes and the sidewalk. What a delight to the eyes.

Yet as I worked to bring out the details in the photo, I discovered something else that thrilled me. I’ll share that with you in a subsequent post. Stay tuned — I think you’ll like it.

MORE TO COME! Check out the interesting follow-up article and photos to this post titled Photos Within.