Fonthill Castle Christmas Decorations – Morning Room
This image is from the Fonthill Morning Room adjacent to the Saloon. Most of the standard day tours do not cover this room. I could not get an acceptable HDR or blended image so I used flash for this image. I set my camera exposure for exterior through the window. The flash provide the light for the tree.
Fonthill Castle Christmas Display – Saloon
This image is taken in the Fonthill Saloon. Getting a good image is always a difficult task in this room with the huge windows and deep shadows. This image is a combination of a 4 image HDR blended with several single images to balance out the exterior light and maintain some of the interior shadows. Lights on the tree created the golden color cast.
Fuji X-T1, XF18-135mm @ 110mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec, ISO 1600
Today’s post includes a few examples of Holiday wreaths that adorn the homes and buildings in Colonial Williamsburg. I just captured a few as my party was walking down the Duke of Glouster Street to our next stop.
A couple of lessons learned here. I shot these images at a high ISO 1600. I was going in and out of shade. Some of the images could have been shot at a much lower ISO for less noise, some couldn’t. Lesson learned: Take my time on each image to get the best shooting parameters … Get out of the mode of shooting a “snap shot”! I did take a little time in processing to POP out the wreath details and colors. It made a difference.
Longwood Gardens East Conservatory
Fuji X-T1, XF18-55mm @ 18mm, f/22, 1/5 sec, ISO 400
This is the first scene I saw as I entered the Longwood Conservatory from the East end. I caught this before a zillion people showed up. I saved my first image for the last Longwood Christmas post for this year. Next year will have many additional interesting opportunities. Goodbye Longwood, at least for the time being.
Fuji X-T1, XF18-55mm, @ 55mm, f/8, 1/55 sec, ISO 400
There is always something around every corner or sometimes right in front of you at the Longwood Gardens Conservatory. This decoration was right in front in the East Conservatory as I walked in. It caught my eye as soon as I glanced around the room.
I pulled out the details of the twigs and the feathers with a “recipe” that I have made in NIK Color Efex Pro. The recipe is a combination of Tonal Contrast, Detail Enhancement, and Pro Contrast. I then applied Darken/Lighten Center to provide additional focus on the white decorations. The total processing time was less that 2 minutes.
Fuji X-T1, EF18-55mm @ 55mm, f/11, 1/10 second, ISO 400
I am still in the Christmas mood. This image is just an effort to work with composition. The subject is the center stamens and pistils of the poinsettia flower. The plant leaves framed the subject while the background ornaments added interest without distracting from the stamens and pistils. I cropped the leaves to eliminated any distracting edges. Using the “mirror lock-up” function might have improved the sharpness of the subject. Always learning …
Canon 5D MkIII, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro – Multiple Exposure
We spent most of Christmas Day lounging in our living room looking at our Tree and reminiscing about the past memories that some of our ornaments brought back. While doing so, why not get a couple of images.
This photo is a combination of two images; one taken at normal focus at a moderate aperture. the other taken as a shallow depth of field and defocused. I combined them using photoshop layers, nothing very fancy.
2014 Georg Jensen Christmas Ornament
Canon 5D MkIII, EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro @ 100mm, f/2.8, 1/13 sec, ISO 200
Merry Christmas to All! Since 1983, we have been collecting a Georg Jensen Christmas Ornament every year. I discovered these ornaments walking around the Copenhagen Airport waiting for a flight home many, many years ago.
I pulled the ornament away from the tree and used a wide open aperture to get the light bokeh in the background. After a lot of playing around with focus distances, distances between the ornament and tree, and aperture settings, I came up with this one. Enjoy, and have a wonderful Christmas Day!
Fuji XT-1, XF18-55mm @ 55mm, f/11, 1/9 sec, ISO 400
With all the people walking around, I switched my focus to close-ups of various things that caught my eye. The only thing that I had to watch out for was other peoples flashes.
Longwood Gardens Conservatory
Fuji XT-1, XF18-55mm @ 34mm, f/22, 1/3 sec, ISO 400
The bright light from the ceiling skylight made capturing this photo taken with a small aperture possible. People were everywhere. Patience paid off again while I waited for the scene to clear. I waited over 10 minutes to catch this break. If I would have had a long exposure there would have been people entering the scene. Lessons learned: do not photograph Longwood on a Friday.