The Colors of Flowers
These flowers were actually in a small flower bed in a park in Charlotte, NC. I got up really close to them with my Sony A7r focusing on the closest flower. Then in Lightroom I drastically changed the cropping, straightening and angle of the shot. I shot this at f/1.2 with my Voightlander 35mm lens to get some really nice and creamy bokeh. I boosted up the colors just a bit of the flowers. I cropped the image to make a small path appear in the dirt on the right leading you in the back of the shot where the nice bokeh is.
A Special Gift
This was a fun photo to take. I took it last year with Sony A7r and Voightlander 35mm lens at around f/1.2 – f/1.5. The bokeh of circles and swirls in the back are the burning fireplace. Then up front is one of the Christmas presents wrapped nicely in snowman wrapping paper and a clear red bow on top. Last year when I took this I couldn’t really figure out how exactly to process it but just days ago, I found myself in just the right state of mind to process this photo by giving it a a nice Nostalgic Christmas mood. To me its funny because one day you may edit a photo much differently then the next, but in this case it took me one year to get this photo looking the way it does now.
Christmas Magic
This year I decided to not only wrap the Christmas Tree with lights, but also my staircase. We had a lot of Christmas lights left over so I thought it’d be fun to be a little creative. Once the lights were up, this great idea for a photo came to mind. I took this shot with my Sony A7r and a Voightlander 35mm f/1.2 lens. I positioned the snowman just right to be framed by the lights around both the Christmas Tree and the staircase. In Lightroom, I did not even touch the saturation and vibrance sliders. I only did minimal adjustments with contrast, highlights and shadows (with a little added vignetting). Enjoy!
On Christmas Night…
This shot is also from Christmas in Davidson. Using my Sony A7r and Voightlander Nokton 50mm lens, I focused this beautiful ornament hanging down from one of the buildings across the street from the Green (where all the food and vendors are). By shooting with the lens fully open at f/1.1, the giant Christmas tree across the street on the Green turned into beautiful golden circles, the perfect background for the beautiful red and gold ornament. It also blurred out the blue night sky and branches at the top, framing the picture nicely.
Christmas Village Shop
Only about a half hour from the city of Charlotte, NC is a little town called Davidson that hosts a special weekend event every year called Christmas in Davidson. The celebration is full of the town’s vendors, restaurants and shops. They also set out a bunch of tables with Christmas treats and goodies along with hot chocolate and cookies. This photo is of one of the little shops that is selling their classic Christmas decorations.
