Christmas Lights in the Neighborhood

Such a good lovely weekend, the weather was not that cold. So decided to take photos. Hubby was so supportive of me when in comes to my photography. Last year was not successful because the weather was so cold. Pictures were mostly blurry because my hands were too damn cold. This time was a little different, though still cold it's much bearable. I was able to take good pictures of the places I wish I had taken the year previously.

Anyhow, here are the awaited pictures taken by me and my tripod with remote control of course :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS 

&

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Yearly Ornaments

I came from a country where Christmas is a big time deal. But I only started collecting ornaments when I moved here in CA. These are my collections through the years.

2011

2010

2009

2007

2006

2005

What are yours?

 

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Greetings!

Happy Holidays Everyone..

I said it in advance before I could miss to greet you all.

There's nothing new..same old same old!

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Christmas Greeting Card

This is my first time to do a photoshoot at home with my husband and our decorated christmas tree. As you see from other christmas post, I already have picture taken with good exposure. Here's my final greeting card that I sent for my friends and family.

Global Winter Wonderland, Santa Clara

I had the great time at Santa Clara's Global Winter Wonderland. Hubby and I arrived past 7pm. To get to the ticket entrance you have to pay $10 for parking and $20 for Vip Pass. We chose the $10 and park ourselves. We walked towards the entrance and stood in line for more than an hour. The cold and the chill made it hard to wait but patiently waited. We were starved since we didn't eat dinner that was a bad idea. But we didn't know how the lines to get the ticket. The expectation was to get in line buy a ticket spend an hour but didn't happen. It took us over 3 hours. I had no regrets at all because I like all what's inside.

Oakland California Mormon Temple

I went to this place Saturday night to see how the city looks like on top of the hills. This church happens to be situated on the best spot to see the city. The attraction to this church is not only it's design but it's Christmas decoration too. Probably, it's more beautiful when it's the golden hour or the blue hour. But still getting there was absolutely nice.

How to Photograph Your Christmas tree?

This is a very challenging part of photography. Up to this very day, my pictures are not good. Either blurry, too warm and dark. I have been reading about it yesterday and a few today as to how will I get that picture moment correct color saturation.

I bought my tree on Saturday and bought decor yesterday. I decorated the tree with a new theme for the year - Purple! I like that color for my tree. I did start of buying purple ornaments last year but I didn't get enough so I mixed my tree with gold. This year I was so happy when I shopped at Michael's in Cupertino. They have all the purple I want. So I finished my tree last night and I start to photograph the tree.

My challenge was to get the correct color setting. After several tries and attempts, pictures were kind of blue, some were green, some were too warm and of course the noise was terrible. I had few pictures of me and the tree. I looked blue. Yikes!

The setting I used was f5.6-8, iso 400, wb incandescent (tweak the color wheel towards blue), exp -1.3-1.7, ss 1", and sb 600 1/16 with green gel. Now when I read about my setting I was wrong with using aperture and the gel.

So tonight I hope I can get my exposure right. Low aperture, iso 200-400, wb incadescent (color wheel towards yellow orange), will start exp to 0, ss 1/4-1" and Sb 600 1/4 with CTO gel. I will cross fingers...

Here's my correct exposure for the night! yay! I love it...

Lights

Contribution by Kennith Griffin

Decorating the house is something that my entire family does every single year. It's amazing how lovely it is to decorate the house so that is looks gorgeous and bright. In fact, we just recently decorated the tree. My mom says that her least favorite part of decorating is dealing with the lights. And I can't really blame her considering they're usually all tangled and messy all the time when we take them out of the box each season. After we're done decorating the tree, we just sit and relax while watching the lights dance across the branches and ceiling. It's really a gorgeous sight.

After we're done decorating our tree, we make sure to set our home security alarm with HOME SECURITY cellguard and we leave to visit my grandmother's house. We normally go to visit her just to see how she is doing with her own decorating and we usually help her if she needs it. Once done, we all sit down for some nice hot chocolate and talk about old times during the holiday season. This little tradition of visiting each others houses during the Christmas season has become something I look forward to every single year. It's no wonder that I absolutely adore going to my grandmother's house to see the way she decorates her home and the way the lights look on her huge tree.

2010 San Jose Christmas in the Park

After 2 days since Christmas Day, I asked hubby if we can go and visit the park. I wanna try my Nikkor 35mm which he gave me on my birthday. I was really excited to try it out. I had tested the camera on the 24th but haven't tried it outside. So when I went to the park night time, that was my chance to check how good the cam is and the camera as well.

First try it was a bit blurry since I have to test the aperture and exposure. All through out the night I was testing different Iso, aperture, WB and exposure. The camera was just so wonderful. It was fast enough and the exposure was so great. I am loving the moment when I was there. Though I know it's not really a surprised to see the decor on the park. It's like every year it has the same decor and designs. It wasn't that exciting for me anymore. Though what makes me excited is the photos.

Hubby did a good job to take some photos of me and I was very happy about that. Here are the photos: