Monday, December 13, 2010

Holiday Lights at Twilight

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's childhood home at twilight, decorated for the holidays!
A dreamy HDR composition of Maine College of Art's (MECA) beautiful holiday decorations and streaming head and taillights of cars on Congress Street at twilight. 
Portland City Night Lights with streaming head and taillights--an HDR.
Ghosts of Christmas Present--This is an HDR composition of three images, but I love how one of the cars stopped at the light long enough during the 30 second exposure to show up as a ghostly silhouette of itself. 
Longfellow Square Holiday Trees with streaming head and taillights again due to 30 second exposure. 
Monument Square's enormous Christmas Tree with streaming head and taillights at twilight.
I went out to Portland's downtown on Saturday night before the big rainstorm we had on Sunday to capture some beautiful twilight along with the holiday decorations of Portland.  As you can see from all of the streaming head and taillights in these long exposures, there were a lot of people out, enjoying the night or heading to dinner and events for the evening.  It was crisp and cool as I strolled up and down Congress Street, enjoying these beautiful sights.  My favorite, hands down, was the Longfellow House, where our favorite son, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, grew up.  I wonder what he would make of electric lights twined around the trees and fence?  I also have a non-HDR (High Dynamic Range) version of the Longfellow House:

Single image of the Longfellow House at twilight.  I'd love to hear which image readers prefer. 
And I also processed a single image of Maine College of Art:
Maine College of Art Single Image--do you like this one or the HDR version (above) better?
I'm hoping to get out to Portland's beautiful Old Port some time this week and do a similar shoot of the holiday decorations at twilight.  Tommy's Park has particularly interesting decorations, similar to the ones in Longfellow Square, so check back to see if I've gotten down there. 

And please take a moment to do the survey at the top right hand side of the blog, regarding what you'd like to see more of, photographically from me and my blog. 

Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season!  Best wishes, Cindy

4 comments:

Bruce said...

The single versions. But nice overall -- you were there at the right time.

Unknown said...

Thanks Bruce! Yeah, I think you're right!

Nikhil said...

Curiously enough I don't really like the Longfellow house, the composition, not the processing. But all the others I really like. I tend to prefer non-HDR and in this case too. But the HDR shots are very well done. Not at all the garish, cartoonish shots you sometimes see from people just learning the technique.

Unknown said...

Thanks Nik! No worries--we can't all love everything, right? That's what makes the world go 'round!

Cindy

Cindy
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