This image is a lot of fun.
This image was shot by one of my students. He wanted to shoot the green snow flake ornament on the tree. As I looked at the setup I noticed that there was a slight blue cast to part of the background, which I liked.
I started playing with my Canon 580EX Speedlite as remote flash triggering it with a Canon Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2 and shoving it inside the tree. The resulting image was interesting but not what I had envisioned.
I pulled out a full CTB (color temperature blue) gel and placed it on my 580EX Speedlite and dropped the power to 64th power then had him try again. This time we were close but not quite there.
The flock on the fore and mid ground was too blue so I bunched up some of the white bulbs closer to the ornament and suggested that he drag the shutter by dropping the exposure to 1/15th second to allow some of the ambient light to fill in the scene. I also dropped the power on my 580EX Speedlite to 128th power and viola… a photo was born. Please enjoy.

Camera specs: Canon 1-Ds Mark II with Canons EF 70 – 200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens @ 200mm, 1/15sec at f / 2.8, ISO 1000, Aperture priority
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ray Mabry Photo, Nancy Giovannini. Nancy Giovannini said: @rmabryphoto that is a beautiful photo Ray…Christmas card material! For my friends you can check out the photo at: http://bit.ly/4ZqOb8 […]