How to Photograph Outdoor Christmas Lights

/

In the latest Decor and the Dog news, you can see our house from space.

There isn't much better than coming home to a house full of lights after a long day in the pharmacy.  All I want to do during the holidays is soak up every minute of it.  Unfortunately, my day job is also the busiest this time of year.  (Stop getting sick, people!)  I think this may be the reason Nate and I go slightly overboard with this whole holiday thing (we did just as much pre-blog).  It's good for us to suck every ounce out of the holidays while we can.

We actually didn't hang quite as many lights this year.  The weather and our schedules wouldn't cooperate.  We really wanted to hang our lighted balls from the trees again this year but no such luck.  I told Nate we should start in August next year. 

I've had this sled in the garage for 3 years. I bought it for $8 at the Salvation Army.  I could never figure out how to use it with our holiday decor.  Nate said I had to sell it on our next garage sale if I didn't use it this year. (Rude!)  I clearly work best under pressure.  Some fresh garland and some thrifted skates spruced it right up.  (Tetanus is totally a risk I'm willing to take for Christmas decor.)

Now all we need is some snow.  Who am I?  But seriously.  I'm totally cool with snow from Thansgiving to Christmas and NOTHING this year.  Not a flake.  Get your act together, Iowa!

I asked Nate for tips on how to photograph outdoor lights.  Here are his suggestions.

-Use a tripod (we like this one). Set your ISO at 100 (or the lowest setting possible) to reduce noise.

-If you don't have tripod, crank the ISO as high as you can (will have to deal with noise).

-Use a remote (we use this one) or the two second timer on your camera.

-Nate has had good luck using auto-focus (If that isn't working, change the manual to infinity).

-Turn the exposure compensation down -0.3  (adjust as needed).

I hope you've enjoyed our week of festiveness here on the blog!  I have a few more posts before Christmas and then I plan to do nothing but snuggle with Ike while eating cookie dough and watching Elf 17 times!