RiSE Lantern Festival, Mojave Nevada

The lantern festival was on our radar as a family ever since my oldest fell in love with, Tangled, Disney’s rendition of the tale Rapunzel. So, if you have not had a chance to watch it, the lanterns are an integral part of the story. Its a cute movie, I would encourage you to watch it. Anyways, we got our chance to go this past October … and it was magical. Our oldest daughter is 4 and I couldn’t help but think that if this event were epic enough, it could be her FIRST memory. How cool would that be? I mean, I know my own first memory is right around 4-5. So as parents, we set out to make it as epic as we could. And, of course, she wore her Rapunzel dress…And, the photographer in me could not let this moment go … um, un-photographed. 

I have to tell you, friends, if you ever have a chance to go to a lantern festival, go. I mean GO! It was completely epic. And not just for my 4 year old, but for me too. For the first lantern launch, everyone waited to go in unison and it was the most amazing, moving, and beautiful thing as thousands of lanterns went up into the dark night sky. People came together, they wrote hopes, dreams, and messages of love on their lanterns. The couple next us, the gentleman proposed…with the lanterns in the sky, he got down on one knee. It was magical, moving, emotional, amazing and just epic, and of course, she said, “yes”.

About the Session

So, I knew going into this that these photos would be low-light. The only light I would have would be the glow of the fire inside the lantern. Low light can be a difficult situation even for the best of us. My plan was to keep my aperture low to allow as much light in as I could and also for compositional purposes, to set my shutter to 1/250 (because I have kids in the picture), and to crank my ISO as high as I needed. If you find yourself in a similar situation, do not worry about “grain”. Expose properly regardless. In lower light photos it makes sense to have a little noise. However, having a camera that can handle low light is always an advantage and there are a couple things you can do in post to smooth some of that grain out…if needed. Believe it or not, you will have less noise if you shoot with a higher ISO and expose properly than if you under-expose and have to pull up overall exposure in post. If done, well, low light photos can be so dynamic and interesting! Check these out…

Add me to your Bloglovin’ reader to always stay current on new posts… [bloglovin_button]

Subscribe to my blog and stay in touch. [mc4wp_form id=”1791′]

no comments
Add a comment...

Your email is never published or shared. Required fields are marked *