Every Other Year Temple Square Photo Session

I won't go over all the reasons that I love Photographing the Temples of my Church. Suffice it to say that I love it, and that Christmas Lights make it even more enjoyable.

It was unfortunate that I only had an hour and half on one night to go. Fortunately it had snowed recently and it looked fabulous! I stayed on the East side instead of running around through the crowds, and managed to mostly stay dry and warm. Hope you enjoy the photos!

And a belated Merry Christmas!

Moving into December and Christmas Stuff....

At most of the Mormon Temples in Utah they will put up a nativity scene, very simple and plain. The one at my local temple has the statues facing the temple instead of away like many. When I dropped by one morning I thought the clouds would make a nice background. It was quite tough to make the scene look good, the lighting was MUCH brighter than the sky. Needed some serious HDR magic to make it look like I wanted it to.

In a park my hometown there is a large tree that has been heavily lit the last few years. It makes for some interesting photos and is really cool to visit.

This is more like it looks to the naked eye. The mountains were difficult to capture on camera and required a LONG exposure and HDR to blend it.

Temple Square Christmas Lights!!!

So it seems that I go downtown every other year to shoot the Christmas Lights at Temple Square. Rather surprising considering how much I like to take photos of temples. Then I start thinking about crowds and realize that is why. People are EVERYWHERE, all the time. I tried to use my 10 stop ND filter but realized quickly that I would be taking very, very. VERY long exposures and that I need to try that some other year..... So with my usual HDR tricks etc... I was able to get some quite nice shots. Not perfect but quite nice!

I really didn't think I would get anything out of this, I was just getting settings right and working on getting the camera level. The clouds show the effect of some pollution, but I still liked the colors. As you will see further in this gallery, this is one of my favorite views.

I decided to go portrait orientation for when the lights came on (5:00 pm if you care) which I like a little bit better. I think I need to go back and pull down a couple of spots of greenish/aqua on the temple. WB is a pain sometimes!!!!

I have a special liking for this statuary that gets put out every year. Next year I will be on this reflecting pool right as the lights come on. I have an idea for a panorama that will be AMAZING!!!! If it works....

The steam coming off the water here was tough to catch, I like how there is just a little movement.

There is something about this angle that I like, not just because it is a walkway that I have walked a zillion times, I just like the... something. As a side note, this photo was taken with my OLD Pentax SMC 24mm f2.8 lens. It is at least as sharp as my Sigma 17-70, if not sharper.

The northeast side of the temple has been somewhat kind to me, but only when I am fairly close. I love the view from North Temple Street but so many things get in the way, it bugs me. I have been determined to find a somewhat new angle. This first one issomewhat similar to one I have done before, but from a more extreme angle. The biggest difficulty with this type of shot is getting everything vertical that needs to be vertical. I am usually less than .5 of a degree off, but photoshop makes fixing that a lot easier!

These next two shots are even more off to the side than is my usual wont. I have enjoyed this view from Main Street before, but never photographed it. I need to experiment more and find more unusual angles to shoot from.

This is my favorite from this angle, I like the sidewalk and movement of the people, the balance of the lit trees with the temple. Works for me.

I really wasn't sure whether this would work or not, I think it is interesting shot, I did no perspective correction and no straightening. Wonder if an 8x10 aspect ratio would work better....

Don't look too closely, this was shot through very dirty glass. I do love the angle though. I wonder what it takes to get up on the roof to shoot in the open air... bet it is more than a smile and  a "Howya doin?"

I prefer the sweep of the sidewalk in this shot to the one below, but I much prefer the trees in the shot below.

I think this is the shot of the evening, as I mentioned, I tried an ND filter to blur out the people, but didn't want to stand there for 45 minutes or an hour... People gave me a few looks, I'm guessing regarding why I was using a tripod etc... but I am used to that. I want ultimate sharpness and IQ, for that I need my ISO 80 and a tripod. If only they knew what I was thinking about them....

Back to the further reflecting pool, hoping there were less people... no dice. Heavy. Sigh. Still like the shots, well LOVE actually, but the people there just niggle at me, guess I could take a sleeping bag and a comfy chair, a 45 minute exposure would hopefully blur most of those folks out.

Yes this one is lighter, playing with the HDR settings and trying for a most pleasing result means each photo is different. I like the shinyness of this one.

 
I have shot this before. And again before that. This is the best so far, but I need to get there early and get the lighter sky like I got in my earliest shots. This will look awesome printed big!

 
I ran over to City Creek just to the south of Temple Square during the middle of the shoot, but I put them in here last because it makes more sense to me. It is a fun place, but not as photo worthy as Temple Square.

Looking back towards the Temple, busy but beautiful.

This fountain is a favorite, I missed the part where it has flames coming out, someday...

You can see the difference in field of view and perspective with a Fisheye (8mm) relative to the above rectilinear lens (10mm)

All in all, I had a really good time, I was dressed for the cold so I tolerated it OK, my largest problem was dealing with the camera backpack on my separated shoulder, no bueno....

Christmas Eve and Day in Utah!

To start with, let me wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Some Dude With a Camera... that would be me. I often am.... sparse with my words and I am maybe not the most engaging guy in the world, but I do appreciate those of you who take the time to drop by my blog. I am often amazed at the places that come up on my gadget that tracks who has been here. You come from all over the world and I am gratified to have such a large audience for my photography. Wherever you come from, you are welcome here, welcome to look around and comment, or run away if my photography doesn't meet your taste. Whatever religion or culture you are part of, I respect that, here where I live we just celebrated Christmas, and are approaching the New Year. Whatever tradition you follow, and whatever holidays you celebrate, I hope they are and have been enjoyable for you!!!!

This is a picture of my home in the Christmas Eve snow it was decorated with, I decided to make a postcard of holiday wishes rather than shovel the snow off the walks. The white balance was very tricky with this, the snow reflects all the light, and with the mixed lighting of different streetlights and the neighbors Christmas lights I had to compromise a bit. I think I may have kept too much magenta, but pulling it down when processing the RAW file in ACR gave me a bit too much green. This was taken on a Tripod, of course, with my Sigma 17-70, I like how the aperture blades gave me a nice star effect with stopping down a bit.

Christmas morning I went to try for a shot that I have been wanting to get for awhile. Although I have been wanting to get it with maybe a little more heavy snow that is sticking on the trees and completely covering the cars I still like what I got. This view is one of my favorites of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. I simply can't get enough of it. Temples are special places in the Mormon Church and having one so close to me is awesome and exciting pretty much all the time.

This was taken at 150mm with my Pentax 55-300 lens. Infinity focus at that focal length is not one of the lenses stronger points but it does OK for a consumer zoom. Next time I plan to zoom in more and put the camera in portrait orientation and shoot a panorama. That will allow me to print it larger and have it be sharper. That lens is REALLY strong in the 200-300mm range as you get out to infinity focus. At the shorter Focal Lengths it does better at medium distances.

For you tecchies, this is a mild HDR just for the added contrast I can get from that process. I can get it pretty close from one shot, but I like the punch that HDR gives me.

Just a few minutes later I shot this house that is just down the street. They do the most amazing light displays for Christmas. I just never seemed to have the time and motivation at the same moment to go and photograph the home. Again, processing this in HDR with three bracketed shots helped to make up for the light and give me more drama and saturation without looking gaudy. Really need to give these folks a copy.

Close to the home I grew up in is a park, it has changed a lot over the years, but I love that the city has kept it up. The last three years they have done a really good job of putting up lights on several trees, and on a small bridge over a creek. This year they added a few trees and rebuilt the bridge to be a covered bridge. They did a good job of lighting it too. These required a bit of work to get the WB correct again. Snow with colored lights is just HARD to figure out!

I won't comment on all the photos, you can tell me which ones you think are better. I like them all!

Thanks for dropping by, and have a happy holiday season!

Temple Square Christmas Lights 2011

One of the most beautiful places to visit during the Christmas Season in Salt Lake City is Temple Square. A great deal of money is spent, and countless man hours as well, making the light display one of the most magnificent anywhere. At least in my opinion anyway.

I try to get downtown every year to take some photos and enjoy the ambiance. Some years have snow, others (like this one) are mostly barren of snow. I prefer the snowy day clearing at sunset weather but seldom get it. This year was cold, and hazy, but not enough to impact the photos. Though, the drive home was a bit scary due to some foggy patches.

I took my usual "Full Kit" Consisting of my K200d (without battery grip for more solid mounting on my tripod's QR plate) Cable Release, Rokinon 8mm f3.5, Sigma 10-20 f4-5.6, Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4.5, Pentax DA 55-300 f4-5.8, and my Pentax DFA 100mm f2.8 WR Macro. I really didn't need the Fisheye, but I like to have it around if an interesting composition comes up. I also, of course, had my trusty Induro Tripod and Vanguard Ball Head.

My intent this trip was less shooting what I have shot before, but looking for a slightly new angle or composition. I have shot here many times before so it is easy to get stale.

This first shot was from the plaza of the Conference Center that sits north of Temple Square. I was trying for extreme depth of field so I shot at f16 with the lens set at 53mm, and an 8 second exposure. (Hint to all those folks running around with their DSLR's set to the highest ISO and the pop-up flash raised. Bring a tripod... it makes your shots look a LOT better. Trust me.

I had several spots picked out before I went that I wanted to try for, this one didn't quite turn out as I had hoped. One day I will get a nice sunset and then have to stand around until the turn the lights on afterwards and composite it together. Till then this will have to do. 19mm f9.5 2s.

I really liked the symbolism of a tree of light in front of the Lord's House, I am almost afraid that the tree dominates too much on this shot. 21mm @ f11 and 2s.

This was a quite tough shot, the lighting on the statuary is much brighter than the lights in the trees. I ended up bracketing +2,0,-2 and blending them in Photomatix. I do wish I would have gone for at least a -3 or 3.5 to give me a little more detail on Mary and Joseph in the highlights, but overall I pretty much achieved what I set out to get. 48mm @ f9.5 Multiple exposures.

Another HDR from the opposite side of the reflecting pond. This shot shows where there is a lot of value in closely looking at your composition. I ended up just cutting off the top of the trees reflection in the pool. It would have taken very little maneuvering to get just a little more height and include that.... sigh.... 53mm f9.5

When I did my survey trip right after thanksgiving, I desperately wanted to include these red trees running east from the temple. They add just the right touch. The difficulty lies in the perspective distortion from the angle. I am not entirely satisfied with the look, I always notice things not being level, this is level, but it doesn't look it. The slight tilt up and the lens pointing just to the right of the temple combine to make it look akward. Need to work on it. 19mm @ f9.5 and 2s

Strangely this is right up there as one of my favorite shots ever taken on Temple Square. For some reason these bag lights really held my attention, and I really wanted to capture them. At larger size the texture of the paper and the holes in the bag just warm my heart. I LOVE this shot. 100mm @ f4.5 and 1/8s.

You may be wondering..... why did he just repost the same shot. Fooled ya! Sorta, same shot different aperture, which changes the look of the background significantly, shot a f6.7 and 1/3s, the out of focus areas are more sharply defined and more detail can be had deeper into the photo. I like the first one simply due to the background being smoother. I sorta wish I had shot one at f2.8 and really blurred the background...

I think this is a better use of the red trees and water feature, with a longer focal length the distortion of the temple seems less, plus I like the composition a little more. 28mm @ f6.7 and 1s. It is sharp enough though I do wish I had stopped down another stop or two. There are subtle changes in the shadow and highlight detail with a longer exposure and smaller aperture that are pleasing to my eye.

This is a favorite angle for me when there is a lot of snow on the trees. Really REALLY hoping to get snow in the next week or so before they turn the lights off. 15mm @ f11 and 6s.

This is a fairly commonly shot perspective, though often from 25-30 feet further back. I love the dominance of the Red tree on the left, giving way to the light of the temple on the right. The stillness and peace of the enduring light vs. the movement of the masses below. 15mm @ f11 and 8s.

While I like this shot, I am not really happy with it. Despite being an HDR, I still have too much highlight loss on the temple. The overall composition is pleasing but I am not completely convinced that I cannot do better. 70mm @ f9.5 multiple exposures.

I shooting through things, to make something familiar almost abstract, it is hard to achieve, which makes it worth trying. Don't believe I was truly successful. However, it is pleasing to me... so there! 170mm @ f9.5 and 4s.

This shot of the same window pleases me more I think. I really need to repeat it in the spring when the tree is blossoming and the sun is just rising. 55mm @ f6.7 and 3s.

I was itching to get my Fisheye out, but I am not fond of the distortion for architecture. This works for me though, mainly because it allowed me to get into a tight spot and make an interesting shot. 8mm @ f9.5 and 20s.

This shot is really my piece de resistance of the evening. I printed a similar shot, for a friend to give to her daughter earlier in the year, but it was pushing the resolution of my sensor a bit. I zoomed to 20mm and shot 9 shots (3 columns across and 3 rows down) giving me a file with the resolution of 6250 x 5000 pixels or 31 megapixels. Plenty of resolution to print this guy BIG!!!!

20mm @ f11 and 4s.

I hope you enjoyed my photos and maybe getting a little more of the technical side of what I was thinking. Merry Christmas!

Lloyd