Christmas Night Photography
I’ve tried to photograph Christmas on many occasions but never quite achieved good results. You can get the classic stock photography of opening presents around the tree, you can go to Christmas markets to do photography but I always find that too cultured. So, this time I thought I’d try something different – Christmas night photography. I am pleased to say, this time I was really happy with the results!
My idea was to create night photography of London’s Christmas lights and what a beautiful setting it was. Join me as I walk around the areas of Regent Street, Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus and find some great Christmas lights to photograph.
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Photo 1 - The warm up shot!
Not the best of pictures but not the worst either. This was the first picture I took, and I like to call these the ‘warm up shots’. Just like a pro football player needs to warm up before the game, so does the photographer. It enables you to get your camera gear out, get set up, and ‘get your eye in’.
I was simply going for a symmetrical composition using the buildings to frame the angel.
Handheld f/2.8 - 1/30th sec - ISO 800 - focal length 16mm
Photo 2 - Scale - then a fancy car pulls up!
Whilst walking up Regent St I found this little side road with angels suspended high up in the air. I decided to create a sense of scale by adding my friend into the middle of the picture. As I was standing in the middle of the road, in the middle of London, I had to hand hold the camera and take the picture quickly.
Whilst taking the picture an expensive and ‘loud’ Subaru car pulls up behind me and wants to come down the road (since learned it was a Forester STI Sports car). The car drives down the road, turns around, faces me and this guy gets out the car and comes to photograph the car where I am standing. So, I thought this was a good opportunity to photograph the car myself. I swapped Instagram with the driver, and he went on his way.
Personally, I like the one with my friend better, I think it creates a better sense of scale. What do you think? Let me know on my Insta, FB or Vero posts, or at the bottom of this blog.
Handheld f/2.8 - 1/40th sec -ISO 1250 - focal length 16mm
Handheld f/2.8 - 1/40th sec - ISO 640 - focal length 16mm
Photo 3 - A classic but, if you’re gonna do it, do it better!
Holding my hands up to this one – This is a classic Instagram picture of Regent Street at Christmas. Literally hundreds of these compositions on the internet. But I thought, I can do it better and I honestly think this is one of the best examples of this scene that I have seen.
I think this is an important point to make, as long as you improve on what you’ve seen, make it that bit better, and admit that you have seen the composition elsewhere, then it’s fine to copy the classic scenes.
f/8 - 2.5 secs - ISO 100 - focal length 17mm
f/7.1 - 2.5 secs - ISO 100 - focal length 17mm
f/7.1 - 2.5 secs - ISO 100 - focal length 17mm
Photo 4 - The trouble photographing in London
As the night comes to an end and we feel some light spots of rain, I thought I’d try and get one more idea that I had. I wanted to get into one image, the classic London underground sign, the Christmas lights and a London bus streaking into the distance.
The picture came out ok but not as I envisaged it. This is because there isn’t enough streaking from the bus. The reason for this was that there were too many people walking and standing around as the busses drove past.
Eventually, after waiting ages, I had a clear scene and a bus was coming up the road behind me. I thought, ‘here we go, the picture I want is coming!’. Then, just as the bus passes me a tourist stands right in front of my lens and takes a picture of the scene I was looking at with his phone!
Sadly, this happens a lot doing photography in London and you just have to deal with it. The rain picked up at that point, so we had to pack up for the night.
f/9 - 2 secs - ISO 100 - focal length 28mm
f/9 - 2 secs - ISO 100 - focal length 21mm
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