Who else is in the Christmas spirit? It’s December, Thanksgiving is over, it is officially Christmastime! I love all the Christmas decorations, the trees, and lights! Every year, I try to go out to see the Christmas lights and last year, I brought along my photography assistant. We went to see the Christmas lights in Pueblo, along the river. We had a little photo session just for fun with all the lights in the background.
Christmas Lights in Pueblo
Christmas lights are so pretty if you know how to manipulate lighting outside so that you can see all the lights and your subject and Pueblo does a lovely setup for the holidays. The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs also has an amazing set up every year. A nighttime Christmas session would be so much fun for family photos! And in the winter, it gets dark so early, that we could still do a session and have everybody home by dinner time.
The only downside is that, for this session at least, it was freezing! There’s no sun to warm you up, like with daytime winter sessions. When we took these photos, it was like 20 degrees outside. The river was frozen everywhere except under the bridge. I remember my hands being so frozen we had to stop because I couldn’t hit the shutter anymore. Lol! It really was so much fun though! I absolutely love the reflection of the lights in the unfrozen part of the river!
This adventure was also a fun chance for us to experiment more with off-camera flash and night time photography. Off-camera flash is what makes night time photography so awesome. I use it all the time at weddings and even for some evening portrait sessions. With this technique, I can capture a beautiful sunset, starry night sky, or festive Christmas lights and still have my subject’s faces lit perfectly. It’s a total win-win! Without off-camera flash, my assistant would just be a silhouette in these photos. Or the background would be a big bright blog. And capturing Christmas lights during the day just doesn’t work. There is something so magical about walking through all those twinkly lights at night, no matter how cold is it!