Twinkle Lights: Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (CFFC)

Guess what? I found another photography challenge! It’s hosted by the same site that runs the Black and White Photo Challenge I started last week. This one is a bit different: there’s fun new a theme every week that explores different aspects of a month or two long series of ideas. A new series started this week: twosies. Sort of pairs of opposites so far. This weeks’s challenge is titled “Light and Dark.” I love it!

As I’m learning, light is vitally important to photography. After all, photography is (at it’s most basic) capturing the images made by photons hitting film (or a digital sensor, as the case may be.) But it’s more than that. A beautifully arranged photo of food can look unappetizing if the lighting is wrong (if you don’t believe me check out the Yelp user provided photos of food at Michelin starred restaurants). Florescent lighting is going to give a cool tone, incandescent will give a warm one (that’s why the dark circles under your eyes look worse in public bathrooms but a blemish will look so much worse at home.) Sunlight is the best light to work by, but at midday it is too harsh and causes starkly over- and under-exposed areas. In dim lighting you end up with noise or camera shake unless your settings are exactly right (and ideally you are using a tripod). A flash can help or just make everything look worse.

That’s why, as an amateur photographer, I’m trying to capture light whenever possible–to see what works and what doesn’t. I got a new 40mm prime lens for the holiday and took it for a test drive this weekend, as I mentioned in my last post.

I absolutely love how these photos of Christmas lights (or as my family calls them, twinkle lights) came out. The bokeh that you can get with this lens is lovely, and contrasts beautifully with the sharpness of the in focus areas that you can only achieve with a prime lens.