Today my job as a commercial photographer took me down to Peterborough to visit Serpentine Green shopping centre to capture the Christmas lights installed by Fizzco, a client I regularly work for at this time of year. Each year, Fizzco commission me to visit one of their new installations to record the Christmas lights to use in their following year’s campaign to bring on board new clients. The Serpentine Green was a new venue for 2017 and so I was on site about 45minutes before sunset to make sure I was there for the blue hour. The blue hour is a small window around 20minutes after sunset in which the sky appears a royal blue colour in the images. This is essential when shooting lights and night scenes – once the sky has gone totally dark, it becomes very difficult to record the scene as the subject can get lost in the shadows. By shooting during the blue hour, it’s possible to capture the Christmas lights and still have plenty of detail in the image allowing the viewer to see the building as well as the lights.
