Monday, December 8, 2008

Lights by the Lake

am having trouble uploading the video...
more photos on my photoblog Sightlines


Every year at this time our city puts on a Festival of Lights. Last night was the official opening for this highlight of the Christmas Season. This year there are over 80 light displays, many of them animated. They change slightly from year to year, but here is a sampling of the mainstays.

First up, we have the Guards. There are 32 of them looking out over Lakeshore Rd.
(probably the only bit that looks better during the day)



Down the steps into the Park and we have a Nativity



Further along there is this



and for some reason, the Eiffel Tower
(11 tries at getting it with its top lit up!)


Your carriage awaits - you can see a little bit where the
horses legs move. The dolphins are flying through
the air into a splash behind the carriage.


I went out after work first thing this morning, but my fingers were too frozen to get more than a couple dozen shots and these were some of the best. I'll try again to actually get some animation.

15 comments:

  1. Lovely! I have a Canadian friend who now lives in NZ - I think she has told me of this, but I didn't realise how interesting the subjects were. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Katherine: Wonderful to meet you. You're welcome. More to come.

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  3. Nice photos - always notoriously difficult to take photographs of lights at night and get them sharp.

    My compliments! You are obviously quite talented with your new camera. Some very interesting shapes - must be quite a lot of effort goes in to setting these light displays up?

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  4. I took about 30 or so at different settings and was rather pleased that so many of them were clear. Thank you, it helps keep me motivated when people who know photography appreciate my efforts.

    It takes about a week to get them set up and 11 months of working behind the scenes (according to the website).

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  5. That's very pretty. I'd love to see the whole thing. I wonder if it's on Youtube?

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  6. They look absolutely great VioletSky:

    I know how hard it is to make these kind of nightshots.

    I use a stabilized lens that allows me to go down to 1/4th of a second (low ISO to prevent digital noise),
    but lights at night remain notoriously tricky.

    Reminds me to post some shots showing what Antwerp, Belgium has on offer this Christmas season.

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  7. Great job on the photographs, I like the Eiffel tower especially. It must be quite a sight to see at night.

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  8. Wow what great photos, I love them all but think the carriage is my favourite.
    All so christmassy, not long to go now - YAY

    from a very tinsel bedecked MA

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  9. How lovely - we have many around here - perhaps I will try and capture some of them :)
    Thank you so much for your comment on my post - I agree, totally, but for the sake of cheeriness took the post down.. might replace it later..
    it's not all gloomy here in the slightest really! :)

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  10. Very nice photos. I know how difficult it is to get this sort of thing just right. Like Jazz says, very cool!

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  11. Love the photos! Not easy to take good night time pictures.

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  12. Thank you all. I went back on Tues morn after our FIRST SNOWFALL (!) and took about 150 more, playing around with different settings. Less than 20 were really good.

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  13. Lovely. Are men allowed to go aaahhh.
    Ken

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