Weekly challenge - Lighten Up Francis!! 12/2 - 12-8

[SquarePeg]

Since it's Christmas season and it get's dark so early for most of us and there are lights everywhere, let's take advantage of it! For this challenge, use lights creatively. Light bokeh, light reflections, light painting... they can be your subject or used as background or to light your subject - the choice is yours. Have some fun with it! As always, please post only new photos that were taken for this challenge.

 

[gk fotografie]

#1

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[SquarePeg]

 

[SquarePeg]

And one more. The cliche Christmas tree bokeh shot:

 

[gk fotografie]

#2
Tamron 500mm mirrorlens & candlelight.
In the Netherlands (also in Flanders, Belgium and certain parts of Germany) we are not yet ready for the Christmas season. We're used to start for Christmas after 5 december, so still a few days to go!

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[SquarePeg]

 

[jcdeboever]

XT2, 16mm

 

[jcdeboever]

XT2, 16mm

 

[JonA_CT]

christmascard by jwa04, on Flickr

Two shot composite for the Christmas cards this year. I'll never take a family self portrait again, but we got the cliche awkwardly well lit family in front of bokeh ballicious christmas tree.

 

[gk fotografie]

#3
Resembles a one-off, candlelight photographed with Tamron 500mm mirror lens in macro mode, edited with software program Pixlr (plugin Gleam).
A quick walk through my village showed no Christmas decorations yet, in shop windows etc.
(tomorrow, when it's the 5th of December, I'll tell you a little story so you know why the Dutch, although traditions start to fade, wait so long to decorate their homes.

View attachment 150329

 

[JonA_CT]

#3
Resembles a one-off, candlelight photographed with Tamron 500mm mirror lens in macro mode, edited with software program Pixlr (plugin Gleam).
A quick walk through my village showed no Christmas decorations yet, in shop windows etc.
(tomorrow, when it's the 5th of December, I'll tell you a little story so you know why the Dutch, although traditions start to fade, wait so long to decorate their homes.

View attachment 150329

It’s St. Nicholas’s Day tomorrow, right?

 

[jcdeboever]

XT2, 60mm macro, manual oof.

 

[jcdeboever]

 

[gk fotografie]

I think this is something every American knows already, but I'll tell it anyway.
Every year on the 5th of December, it's the anniversary of a very special person, namely Sint Nicolaas or Sinterklaas as he is simply called.
The American Santa Claus is a corruption of the Dutch name Sinterklaas and the Sint Nicolaas celebration which was taken to North America by Dutch settlers.

In 1809, in his fictional history of New York, Washington Irving already described a Santa Claus based on, among other things, Dutch Sinterklaas customs.
Our Sinterklaas rides a white horse, named Amerigo, over the roofs of houses and his helpers throw gifts for all children through the chimneys (the entire Sinterklaas party sounds pretty much like Santa Claus and this sleigh, don't you think?). But...our Sinterklaas comes from Spain by steamer and officially he is Bishop of Myra.
Strangely enough, a bishop seems to have existed centuries ago who distributed candy/food to poor people and children in the Myra (Turkey) region.

In the past 50 years, the Sinterklaasfeest has almost completely become something for children, where they receive gifts and sweets from Sinterklaas on the evening of the 5th December, nowadays more and more adults give each other presents on the first day (in the Netherlands Christmas officially takes 2 days) of Christmas.

Presumably the American Santa Claus is a mixture of the Dutch Sinterklaas and English Father Christmas, although also the use of German emigrants, such as Knecht Ruprecht and Pelzmärtel, and the German use of giving each other gifts during Christmas, may have been of influence.
In the Netherlands and Belgium we've only known "American" Santa only since the end of the 1960s.

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[jcdeboever]