Each Christmas season the Green Bay Botanical Gardens hosts the Festival of Lights in which the gardens turn from simply cold and snow covered, to cold, snow covered, and full of pretty lights!
The garden has a half mile lighted walk that has full Christmas tree lights, a Christmas light rainbow, a completely illuminated forest, lots of larger than life flowers, bugs, and critters, along with orchestrated lights to music and lots of other Christmas light fun. There’s also a wagon ride for those who choose not to walk. We went on a Sunday night so it wasn’t too crowded and we did not feel rushed at all.
Wandering around the botanical garden when it’s almost zero degrees doesn’t allow you to sit and gaze all night at each display, but I did manage to get a few shots that I like. All the images were shot with a canon rebel xti. Doing super cold weather photography did make the camera run a tad slower, but it seemed to last longer than my fingers did!
The Christmas lights were great for practicing the bokeh photography technique, and working on getting night shots using a tad longer shutter speed without a tripod. The biggest challenge was often holding the camera still enough without a tripod (and trying to feel my fingers), but for the most part using a shutter speed of less than 1/4 seemed to make the images clear enough. It also created a cool blur effect around people walking that made them look a little ghost like to me.
All the images below were shot using a f5.6, iso 800, and shutter speeds of roughly .4″ down to 1/10. No flashes or diffusers were used.
These are some of my favorite photos taken at the Green Bay Botanical Garden Festival of Lights.
Have you ever been to this display of lights, or do you have a favorite display somewhere else? Share below!
