Christmas Lights - A River of Blue
A reminder to step back and take in the whole picture
I don’t live near a city, and I don’t have a nearby source of streets with bright lights to photograph regularly. Nearby small towns have a handful of storefronts. But not a lot of variety. So each year around Christmas, when the seasonal lights go up everywhere, I get to take a few more night photos with lights. There are currently many more options!
So when something new shows up in these winter displays, it always catches my attention. It’s a chance to see familiar places differently.
One of the larger displays in the area is at a local museum. While walking through the outdoor displays this year, we found something new they had done: a stream with a bridge where there had been none before.
There were blue lights along the ground.
Reflected in the snow, they created the effect of a stream.
Where they crossed the walkway, a small bridge had been placed over the top of it. Happily, we have snow on the ground already for the full effect.
As usual, I began by looking for what I could simplify.
I was experimenting with black-and-white images of the displays. But I quickly found that this part of the light show relied heavily on color to get the right effect.
Black and white just didn’t work.
Many of my compositions require moving closer and isolating a subject. Noticing something and removing the extras. That approach didn’t work here.
The effect of the light on the snow and the way it flowed through the scene needed a wider view. It needed context. The bridge, the people crossing it, the carousel beyond… all of it helped complete the illusion.
This wasn’t a detail to extract. It was something to step into.
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