Here in Maryland there is a light dusting of snow on the ground, temperatures in the high 20’s low 30’s. My wife and daughter are out to see a play, and my son is upstairs taking a nap. The only football game on right now is the Eagles/Giants game — yawn.

I’m bored.  What to do? I know, take some pictures of the Christmas ornaments on the tree we recently put up.

These shots were taken on a tripod with my 135 f/2.0 lens. ISO 200 and a tungsten WB. The average shutter speed was about a third of a second.

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I just returned from an assignment to shoot a home here in Bel Air that goes all out in decorating for Halloween. I purposely arrived at sunset so I could make good use of the sky as well as see the lights on display.

This shot was taken at 6:50p — about 20 minutes after sunset.

To make the sky look even more blue, I set my camera’s white balance to tungsten. The rest of the camera settings were 1/4 sec SS, ISO 200, f/5.6.

I also used two off-camera strobes, both with a CTO gel to match my tungsten setting of the camera. One Vivitar 285 at 1/8 power on lightstand about 15 feet in front of left side of house. Second Vivitar 285 at 1/2 power in my right hand over my head pointed at front door area.

This technique works great for portraits taken at dusk with the sky in the background.