Filoli Holiday Light Show

 

Filoli knows how to light up a garden. During the holidays, the trees and bushes are adorned with thousands of lights, more than exceed 20 miles worth if stretched end to end. I photographed this event last year and managed to get a photograph near the entrance to the mansion. With that photo in the can, I went home, and didn't take the time to explore the grounds.

This year there was an orientation specefically for the press, just outside of the mansion itself. From our meeting area, I saw that the light displays were much more extensive than I imagined, so when the meeting broke, I scurried about, looking for something that would convey the visual excitement of the season.

When I happened upon this Tunnel of Lights, I immediately thought of the hyperspace scene in Star Wars, and started setting up the shot. The lights seemed to move in a wave from back to front, and different strings provided tints of blue and orange.  At this moment, the lights were  at their brightest, and I used this as the base for my final exposure.

I chose to submit the image at the top of the post. The blurred kids, running down the tunnel, made it look like a fun thing for the whole family, and since they were blurred, I didn't bother to get their names. My two subjects, Vicki and Jim, were very cooperative, and I managed to get everything wrapped up in less than five minutes. 

The shot was made from a very low angle to emphasize the tunnel effect. I mounted a flash on the camera and tilted the head up slightly to prevent overexposing the foreground, If you look at the sample shot, you'll notice that the lights appeared to be smaller than those in the image at the top of the post. This is because I lengthened the exposure so the lights would flare a bit and appear larger. 

When I started to process the image on my computer, I noticed something important about where I placed my subjects and what improvements I might make in the future. I made the shot near the middle of the tunnel, and the tunnel lights above and behind me produced a very flat, shadow-free light fill light. Had I moved closer to the "mouth" of the tunnel, there would have been fewer of these lights, and the effect of any flash, either on the camera on a light stand, would have been much more pronounced. I could have made the lighting much more dramatic had I just moved away from the center, and positioned the flash in a more dramatic way. 

I will remember that for next year.