Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays to all. I have been seeing great pictures of holiday lights this season, and finally decided to try and take one of my own. The photo above is an HDR Exposure Blend (using Photomatix) of 7 exposures I took one morning. I also took some photos just using the ambient light and not doing the HDR thing. After reviewing these shots on the computer, I decided the white lights just aren’t very interesting. Normally we decorate the two large fir trees in front of our house with colored strings, but we opted not to this year. Rest assured, we will next year. That will give it some “life” I think. So instead, I will go out in search of other homes in our neighborhood to take pics of. I had better hurry, only a week to go before most people take their lights down.

Oh, and I should point out that the inspiration for this, besides the photos I linked to above, was a Strobist article about holiday light pictures. As is the norm with Strobist help, this article was wonderful for a rookie like me.

When you are shooting a room with a great view, it is a good idea to show that view, if you can. But that is more complicated when you think about the exposure levels outside versus inside the room. Since I was in an awesome location recently (the Park Hyatt in Beaver Creek, Colorado), I decided to use the property to do some practice on. I have posted a few images from this test in the Photography For Real Estate Flickr group (yes, it is a Flickr complement to Larry Lohrman’s excellent site/ blog) and have received some useful feedback from it.
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