Christmas Eve on Wellington

Way back on Christmas Eve, while the rest of the "In-Laws" were off saying their prayers, and saying a few for me as well I hope, I was out in the minus -20 degree weather taking photographs.  Maybe not the best choice, but I was given the okay by My Lovely Assistant to skip the service so I could wander around town and take some photographs.  So, imagine the pressure that I'm feeling at the moment.  I skipped out on the Christmas Eve church service to take photographs.  I hope that they like these, otherwise my invitation to Christmas this year might get lost in the mail.  As previously mentioned, all of these photographs were taken in the early evening of December 24th.  I was walking along Wellington street in the borough of Verdun, very close to where My Lovely Assistant's sister, who was hosting Christmas Eve this year, lives.  I walked down the street a little bit until finding myself at the corner of Wellington and De L'Eglise where I plopped myself and my tripod down and began to snap away.  The first photograph that you see in this set was taken a little further up the street, but all of the rest were pretty much taken on the same block.  I didn't bring lots of equipment with me for a couple of reasons.  First, it was freezing cold outside and I really didn't plan on fumbling around changing lenses while watching my fingers, and camera, freeze.  Secondly, while I consider myself to have the size that would prevent such happenings, Verdun has a bit of a 'past' to it and it just takes one 'crazy' to make things uncomfortable.  I wasn't looking to be uncomfortable, so off came the battery pack, which proved to be a bit of a problem as my tripod latch was still attached to it which meant a quick walk back to the house.  I also only brought along my 18-55mm lens, otherwise known as 'the lens that came with my camera which never gets used anymore".  I wanted to give it a little bit of action, and the lens is small enough so that I could fit my camera into my pocket while I was walking.  It was dark out, so I was obviously out looking to take some long exposure shots of both the buildings and cars that were going by.  Traffic was kind of light, it was Christmas Eve after all, so I had to make the most of the few cars that actually did pass by.  Over the course of the hour and a half that I was out walking the streets, but batteries drained down to about half power due to how cold it was.  With the first shot that you saw here on the page, I wanted to get a shot of the street with the ball shaped decorations that line it.  I took a few test shots to find out what kind of exposure time would work best and I settled on 12 seconds.  As soon as a car approached, I waited just before it passed me to pull the trigger and then counted down from 12 in my head before releasing the trigger.  The photograph was shot at f/13, 12sec, ISO 100 at 31mm.  The long exposure allowed for me to capture the light trail of the car that passed by, creating a nice red line that you can follow through the photograph.  The second photograph follows the same concept as the first.  I placed myself at an angle to see both the church and the traffic that flowed on the street.  I liked the red lights of the church and wanted to make sure they would be in the photograph, as well as the cars that were passing by.  This photograph was taken at f/13, 29sec, ISO 100 at 18mm.  The third photograph features yet more light trails.  I liked the store signs on the left of the photograph and also that it allowed me a clear view of the traffic lights.  I wanted a real long exposure time so that I'd be able to capture the entire red, yellow, green progession.  I used a really small aperture to make sure that the photograph wouldn't be washed out by the lights of all the passing cars.  This one was shot at f/29, 48sec, ISO 100 at 35mm.  The fourth photograph was of the same traffic light on my corner of the street.  I kind of like taking photographs of traffic lights.  This one was shot at f/29, 34sec, ISO 100 at 35mm.  The fifth photograph was shot from the same side of the street as the church.  The building on the right had bright red lights and I wanted to catch the glow from the windows.  This one was taken at f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 27mm.  The final photograph from this set is a 'gasp', Photoshop creation.  I know, I speak badly of Photoshop, but it can be fun to play with.  This last photograph was taken f/10, 10sec, ISO 100 at 18mm.  Then in Photoshop I played around with the Levels tool and also used the Colour Balance function to add a whole lot of red to the photograph.  After that, I was about to make the cold walk back to the party when I was surprised to see My Lovely Assistant, her father and sister walk out of the very church that I was talking photos of, so I was able to warm up a bit during the ride back to the house.